Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces said Wednesday they have seized the windswept “border triangle” where Sudan meets Libya and Egypt, claiming victory just hours after the SAF acknowledged a tactical retreat from the remote desert garrison.
In a statement posted online, the RSF said its fighters overran SAF positions at Al-Uwaynat, “inflicting heavy losses in lives and equipment” and capturing dozens of military vehicles.
The Sudanese force, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, called the advance a “strategic shift” that would tighten its grip on northern supply routes.
The SAF confirmed it had evacuated the post but framed the pullback as part of “defensive arrangements to repel aggression.”
Commanders accused the RSF of attacking with help from Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar and alleged that the United Arab Emirates bankrolled the operation, calling it a flagrant breach of Sudanese sovereignty.
Sudan’s Foreign Ministry urged the United Nations, African Union and Arab League to condemn what it termed foreign interference, while Haftar’s Libyan National Army denied taking part, accusing Khartoum of “exporting its internal crisis by inventing an outside enemy.”
The triangle lies in the far north of North Darfur state, roughly 375 miles (600 km) north of El Fashir, a frontline city besieged for weeks in Sudan’s two-year civil war. The barren expanse has long served smugglers moving arms, migrants and contraband across the Sahara, making control of the outpost a coveted prize for both sides.
Fighting over the crossing has already pushed tens of thousands of civilians toward Libya, aid groups say, compounding a regional humanitarian crisis that has uprooted more than four million Sudanese since war erupted in April 2023 between the SAF and the RSF.
The latest clashes underscore how the conflict has spilled across borders and drawn in outside actors. Khartoum has repeatedly accused Abu Dhabi of supplying drones and cash to the RSF, charges the UAE denies. Cairo, a longtime backer of SAF and of Haftar in Libya, has so far stayed silent on the triangle’s fall but is likely to face fresh pressure to mediate.
Diplomats fear the RSF’s advance could open a new corridor for weapons and mercenaries into Darfur just as international mediators struggle to salvage a stalled cease-fire plan that would protect civilians and allow aid convoys to move. The United States and regional bloc IGAD are expected to raise the issue in separate meetings this week.
For now, the RSF says it is “securing borders” in the northern desert, while the SAF vows to regroup. With El Fashir still under siege and fresh fronts erupting from Kordofan to Port Sudan, few Sudanese expect the triangle to remain quiet for long.