Sudan Nashra: Idris promotes govt roadmap as Quad prepares humanitarian truce proposal | WFP convoy, displaced civilians targeted in North Kordofan, dozens killed | Military launches operation to retake Bara

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As the US-led Quad on Sudan prepares to unveil a new proposal for a humanitarian truce, Prime Minister Kamel Idris carried his December “Sudan’s peace roadmap” to Switzerland, promoting it as the most viable framework for pairing humanitarian relief with a political process.

Behind the civilian packaging, however, the initiative ultimately rests on the military’s core preconditions to talks, including the withdrawal and disarmament of the Rapid Support Forces.

Former government sources told Mada Masr that Idris’s diplomatic push fits within the strategy Transitional Sovereignty Council Chair and military Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has pursued since 2024: keeping multiple tracks open to avoid narrowing the military-led government’s room for maneuver while navigating international pressure.

On the opposite side, the RSF-led Tasis alliance — leading the parallel government in Darfur — signaled its support for the Quad’s efforts and is preparing its own political “vision” to be presented to the public soon, Hasab al-Naby Mahmoud, a member of the alliance’s leadership authority, told Mada Masr.

Yet as roadmaps and political visions multiply, violence on the ground continues to undermine the very premise of humanitarian de-escalation or a negotiated settlement.

This week, a drone strike hit a World Food Programme convoy in North Kordofan, burning its entire cargo of food aid intended for displaced families and war-affected communities, according to medical and government sources. The following day, another strike targeted a vehicle carrying civilians fleeing the fighting. Dozens were killed.

The attacks drew swift international and regional condemnation, with some statements explicitly blaming the RSF. Sudan’s Foreign Ministry also issued a statement saying Khartoum would not partner with “crime doers and those who are silent about their crimes” in any project for an end to the war. 

The Tasis alliance quickly responded, denying RSF involvement and dismissing the condemnations, saying that some states and actors “are losing their neutrality day after day.” The office of RSF spokesperson Al-Fateh Qurashy, speaking to Mada Masr, accused the military of staging the attack on the convoy in an attempt to push the international community to adopt its narrative. 

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Idris promotes govt roadmap

World Council of Churches (WCC) General Secretary Jerry Pillay welcomes Sudanese Prime Minister Kamel Idris at the WCC office in Geneva on February 6, 2026. Courtesy of Ivars Kupcis/WCC.

As humanitarian truce initiatives resurface after months of quiet, Prime Minister Kamel Idris has stepped up efforts to market the government’s peace initiative as Sudan’s primary political framework.

Idris wrapped up a diplomatic tour in Switzerland that he began in early February, holding meetings with United Nations officials and relief organizations focused on the humanitarian crisis and the roadmap he presented to the UN Security Council in late December. A Foreign Ministry source said Idris brought the initiative back up amid the reactivation of the Quad track, aiming to present it as the most appropriate framework for pursuing humanitarian relief and a political process simultaneously.

Despite projecting the image of a civilian-led pathway, Idris’s initiative ultimately rests on the military establishment’s core demands, including the withdrawal and disarmament of the RSF.

Former government sources told Mada Masr that Idris’s outreach fits within the strategy pursued by TSC Chair Abdel Fattah al-Burhan since 2024, centered on maintaining multiple diplomatic tracks to widen the leadership’s margin for maneuver — an approach that became more pronounced after the fall of Fasher in late October, which placed Burhan under heightened pressure from his military bloc and Darfuri armed movements.

Three months after its last truce proposal — which Sudan’s government and military rejected outright — the Quad track returned to the scene last week when US Senior Advisor Massad Boulos announced that a draft humanitarian truce agreement has been prepared following consultations with the warring parties, the Quad, the UN and other partners. Boulos said the proposal includes limited withdrawals and redeployments in priority areas, informed by UN humanitarian assessments, as well as preliminary understandings on monitoring mechanisms, adding that the text would be referred to the UN Security Council.

An Egyptian state official told Mada Masr that the Quad will soon convene a meeting at the senior official level.

Khartoum has so far neither endorsed nor rejected the proposal. Official rhetoric has continued to emphasize openness to initiatives aimed at halting the war, provided they do not infringe on what the military-led government defines as core sovereignty and security principles.

Idris’s proposal largely overlaps with Burhan’s roadmap he presented before the UN General Assembly in 2024, but the difference lies in ownership and presentation, a former Sudanese diplomat at the UN said. Idris appears as the owner of the initiative and its political and diplomatic promoter, not just a conveyor of a military vision, creating the impression of a civilian governmental track running alongside the military one.

A diplomatic source who served as an advisor to former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s government said Burhan’s 2024 roadmap was not intended as a competing negotiation track. Rather, it functioned as a retained reference framework, allowing the leadership to engage internationally without committing to a single binding process — a posture that the source said later crystallized into Burhan’s multi-track strategy.

A former senior official in the 2005 government likewise said that this civilian-military dual track has been framed as a functional division of roles to help Khartoum navigate mounting international pressure.

But in the source’s assessment, military and political conditions at present remain far from anything that would allow even speculation about a truce or ceasefire. 

Months earlier, an opening had existed. In mid-October, before the fall of Fasher, circumstances were more conducive to a truce that could have aimed to lift the RSF’s siege of the city and enable aid deliveries, the source said. This could have been followed by a second phase easing sieges on Dalang, Kadugli and Babanusa, before transitioning toward a longer political process, they added.

That possibility was upended by the military’s loss of Fasher. According to a former Foreign Ministry official, the fall of Fasher effectively collapsed the Quad track from Khartoum’s perspective. The seismic fall of Darfur’s regional capital placed Burhan and the military in a weakened position, while hardline stances among Darfuri armed movements came to the fore, rejecting any humanitarian truce that would leave the RSF entrenched in cities — an outcome they viewed as tantamount to ceding Darfur to the RSF.

The former government official said international actors have failed to see that Burhan has long operated within constraints imposed by the military. Since the Sudan Political Framework Agreement was signed in 2022 to relaunch the transitional process, Burhan has not rejected engagement with international partners or political pathways to a permanent solution, according to the former official. But the military’s red lines are clear — it will not tolerate the existence of an armed force that controls resources or wields influence within the state, they said.

“Burhan will not concede on the conditions laid down by the military, even if that leads to major sanctions against him,” the source concluded. “That is why he is working to manufacture multiple tracks that seek to bridge international demands with the vision of his military institution.”

That calculus became even more visible in November, after the Quad submitted its third revised proposal. Burhan addressed senior commanders in Khartoum, moving to undercut the Quad initiative, while endorsing an alternative Saudi-led track that emerged after Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman went to Washington for talks with United States President Donald Trump.

During his address, Burhan effectively froze the Quad initiative. He blamed Boulos for its failure, accusing him of advancing Emirati positions within the Quad, and criticized the exclusion of Sudan’s official responses from revised drafts. Burhan instead doubled down on the prerequisites anchored in the 2023 Jeddah Agreement — the core of his 2024 roadmap, namely the RSF’s disarmament, its withdrawal from all areas seized after the Jeddah talks and the relocation of its fighters to designated military camps.

An Egyptian source familiar with Cairo’s policy on Sudan told Mada Masr at the time that Burhan’s invocation of the Jeddah Agreement is “about a political position” directed by a military establishment that wants to see the RSF eliminated completely.

The outcome of Burhan’s anti-Quad moves was that the platform suspended any further steps toward implementation, a former Foreign Ministry official said. This gave Burhan space to assert a hardline position without a direct confrontation with international pressure, while enabling Idris’s initiative to be presented at the UN Security Council a month later as a less confrontational civilian framework marketed externally that preserved military sovereignty, according to the former ministry official and the former senior government official.

As a result, the Quad was reduced to a non-binding, experimental track, according to the former ministry official.

While Boulos said last week that the latest humanitarian truce proposal is still being finalized and has not yet reached either side, the RSF-led Tasis coalition — leading the parallel government in Darfur — continues to express support for the Quad initiatives and appears to be drafting a roadmap of its own.

Hasab al-Naby Mahmoud, a member of the coalition’s leadership authority, voiced support for the Trump administration’s role and Boulos’s efforts through the Quad, despite what he described as weak-willed positions among some participating states. He said the main obstacle lies with the groups in Khartoum and Port Sudan.

Mahmoud dismissed Idris’s initiative as “without quality,” arguing that it neither advances Sudan’s strategic interests nor responds to the revolution’s goals of a civilian, democratic state grounded in pluralism. According to the Tasis member, the coalition has prepared a written vision to be made public, “aimed at making the current war Sudan’s last and laying the foundations for a civilian democratic state.”

Sudan’s opposition Civil Democratic Alliance for Revolutionary Forces, or the Sumud alliance, which has been leading a regional and international tour promoting a ceasefire-centered political process, likewise discredited Idris’s roadmap while voicing support for the Quad track.

Al-Watheq al-Barbar, a senior Sumud figure and the general secretary of the National Umma Party, told Mada Masr that Idris’s Government of Hope lacks the legitimacy or popular mandate to propose initiatives with such consequences for Sudan’s future. He argued that the current government is part of the political landscape that produced the crisis and that its initiative seeks to impose a new political reality that bypasses the demands of the Sudanese street.

For Sumud, Idris’s initiative falls short of the minimum standards of serious political proposals, Barbar said. It fails to clearly address the issue of building a unified, professional national military, and does not outline a genuine political process grounded in national interest or responsive to the complexities of Sudan’s reality.

Barbar also raised concerns over accountability, transitional justice, ending impunity and cooperating with the International Criminal Court, arguing that no sustainable peace can be achieved without addressing these issues. He criticized the terms requiring the RSF’s withdrawal before negotiations, set without national consensus or clear implementation mechanisms. No new elements that could produce a real breakthrough were introduced to the three-year old preconditions, he said.

As for the Quad initiative, Sumud sees that it offers clearer principles and broadly aligns with the aspirations of the Sudanese people, particularly in its focus on a humanitarian truce, ending the war and managing realities on the ground through a defined roadmap, according to Barbar. While acknowledging that the track has stumbled, he said it remains a viable framework that can be built upon, provided Quad states align their positions, coordinate with the Consultative Mechanism for Peace in Sudan and other regional and international actors, and meaningfully include civilian forces through a national roundtable dialogue.

With the fall of Fasher, an international consensus in Sudan aligned around the notion that “there is a de facto division” and any political solution would require dialogue between the military, the RSF and representatives of Sudan’s political forces, with the goal of charting a path toward an independent, civilian-led government to replace Sudan’s parallel governments.

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WFP convoy, displaced civilians targeted in North Kordofan, RSF denies responsibility

Aid convoy destroyed in North Kordofan drone attack on February 6, 2026. Courtesy of @sudan_war on X.

A drone strike that hit a World Food Programme aid convoy in North Kordofan, followed a day later by another attack on a vehicle carrying displaced civilians, has left dozens dead and triggered a wave of regional and international condemnation.

The first strike targeted a WFP convoy traveling from Kosti in White Nile State to North Kordofan on Friday. Two medical sources and a field source in North Kordofan’s government told Mada Masr that the convoy was hit by an RSF suicide drone.

The attack killed one humanitarian worker and injured several others, and burned the entire cargo, destroying large quantities of food aid intended for displaced families and war-affected communities, according to the sources. The field source said that the trucks were stationary at a designated location, lined up and visibly marked with the UN logo, which they said points to a premeditated attack.

A day later, a second drone targeted a truck carrying displaced civilians fleeing from Dubeikar in South Kordofan as it reached the city of Rahad in North Kordofan, a medical source in the Sudan Doctors Network told Mada Masr.

The attack killed 24 people, including eight women and children, among them two infants. Survivors were treated in Rahad, with medical facilities struggling amid severe shortages of supplies, the source said.

The two incidents drew swift condemnation. The United Nations denounced the continued targeting of civilians and humanitarian operations. Speaking before the Human Rights Council on Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said that “in a period of just over two weeks to February 6, [...] some 90 civilians were killed and 142 injured in drone strikes by the RSF and the [Sudanese military]. These struck a World Food Programme convoy, markets, health facilities and residential neighborhoods in South and North Kordofan.”

Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt condemned the attacks on humanitarian convoys, medical facilities and civilians, with Riyadh placing responsibility on the RSF. Qatar, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council also denounced the strike on the aid convoy, while Turkey condemned the attack on the vehicle carrying displaced civilians, similarly blaming the RSF.

Sudan’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement on Sunday, condemned what it called “international silence toward the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the RSF militia and its so-called Tasis government in Darfur and Kordofan.” 

On the same day, the RSF-led Tasis issued a statement denying the paramilitary group’s responsibility for the attacks. “Unfortunately, some states and regional and international actors are losing their neutrality day after day, turning a blind eye” to the military’s crimes while issuing condemnation “without proper verification of facts,” the statement read.

Tasis accused the military of carrying out documented attacks in recent months against humanitarian convoys, relief workers and markets across Darfur and Kordofan. The alliance reaffirmed its commitment to facilitating humanitarian access and protecting aid workers.

The office of RSF spokesperson Al-Fateh Qurashy likewise told Mada Masr that the regional condemnations were hastily issued without verification or independent investigations, accusing the military of orchestrating the attacks in an attempt to push the international community to adopt its narrative. 

The office said the statements issued reveal the nature of Sudan’s crisis, arguing that intervention without evidence undermines any attempt to reach a humanitarian truce and portrays the RSF as an aggressor.

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Clashes resume in Blue Nile’s Bau locality

Sudanese military’s Fourth Infantry Division headquarters. Courtesy of Darfur 24. 

Fighting broke out once again this week in Blue Nile’s Bau locality near the Ethiopian and South Sudanese borders. On Saturday, the military said the Fourth Infantry Division defeated a joint force of the RSF and its ally the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, in the Sillik area, about 150 kilometers southwest of Damazin.

A military source told Mada Masr that military units carried out coordinated ambushes, drawing the attacking force into Sillik before launching a counteroffensive that resulted in the capture of dozens of RSF fighters.

On Tuesday, military airstrikes targeted RSF and SPLM-N positions in the border towns of Yabus, Milkan and Khor al-Boudy along the Ethiopian border, causing heavy losses, another military source said.

The fighting follows a similar flare-up in late January, when RSF and SPLM-N forces advancing from SPLM-N camps in southern Blue Nile briefly seized Sillik and Milkan before withdrawing under military counterattacks. 

A Sudanese security source told Mada Masr at the time that RSF forces had been detected converging in SPLM-N camps in southern and southwestern Blue Nile, arriving from both Ethiopian territory and South Sudan through East Darfur.

On the same day of the January attacks, TSC deputy chair and Military Assistant Commander-in-Chief Malik Agar was in Juba for talks with National Security Advisor Tut Gatluak and President Salva Kiir on border security and RSF supply lines.

During the talks, both Gatluak and Kiir outlined the scale of security challenges facing Juba in border areas, where splinter armed factions are active and government forces lack full control, a source in the South Sudanese Foreign Ministry told Mada Masr at the time.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera on Saturday, Agar said RSF supplies had entered via the Kenyan port of Mombasa before moving through South Sudan’s Bahr el-Ghazal region toward Blue Nile. He estimated that around 350 fuel trucks had been delivered through this route, in addition to other shipments.

Agar accused South Sudan Vice President Taban Deng and former security officials of facilitating military and logistical support to the RSF, while maintaining that the assistance is unofficial and driven by the figures’ economic interests. He said the issue was addressed during his recent meetings in Juba.

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Military launches operation to retake Bara 

Chinese FK-2000 air defense battery belonging to the RSF in North Kordofan targeted by the Sudanese military. Courtesy of @OSINT_MASR on X.

The military launched an operation in North Kordofan aimed at retaking the city of Bara and securing the Saderat Road linking Obeid to Omdurman in Khartoum State, a field source told Mada Masr.

Heavy fighting broke out around Bara on Tuesday as part of the push, lasting more than 10 hours, according to the source. Military forces destroyed RSF vehicles and equipment and dismantled several of the group’s positions, they said.

The campaign’s objective, the source said, extends beyond Bara and the Saderat Road. The operation forms part of a broader plan to consolidate control in North Kordofan and West Kordofan before pressing further west toward Darfur.

During a press briefing sent to Mada Masr, military spokesperson Assem Awad said the military destroyed RSF drone and air defense sites in both Kordofan and Darfur, including operational units and storage facilities.

Awad displayed images of the wreckage of a Chinese-made CH-95 drone and FK-2000 air defense systems.

A military source told Mada Masr that the systems were operated by foreign mercenaries and had previously curtailed the military’s air operations, including during battles in Babanusa and Fasher. Their removal, the source added, would reopen airspace for military aircraft and drones across multiple battlefronts in Kordofan and Darfur.

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