FILE - Refugees arrive at the border between Chad and Sudan before going to the Tine transit camp in Chad's Wadi Fara province Sunday, May 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Caitlin Kelly, file)

By The Canadian Press

At least 17 dead in fighting on Sudan’s border with Chad, aid group says

Mar 18, 2026 | 5:43 AM

CAIRO (AP) — The latest heavy fighting between warring parties along Sudan ’s border with Chad has killed 17 people and left many seriously wounded, a medical group said.

Health authorities received 123 wounded people at a newly built hospital, of which 66 arrived in a serious condition, Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF, said in a post on X late Tuesday.

The army said in an update that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, had expanded its attacks on military areas in Tina, but that troops were able to repel them and forced them to withdraw.

The attacks were part of intensified fighting near the border between the army and the RSF, who have been at war since April 2023. The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, according to U.N. figures, but aid groups say the true number could be much higher.

Tina is one of the last areas still being held by the Sudanese military in the sprawling Darfur region, which has been under RSF control since October 2025. The nearby Tine crossing has been used as the sole route for cross-border humanitarian aid and deliveries from Chad when the Adre border crossing is closed.

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Chad said last month it had closed its border with Sudan “until further notice” in an attempt to limit the spread of conflict into its territory

Those injured in Monday’s attacks were treated by MSF teams and Chadian health services at a new hospital in Tine, Chad.

A MSF staffer at the hospital said doctors are treating patients without water or electricity and are relying on generators and solar panels. Stockpiles of medicine are also said to be running low because of the influx of new patients.

Chad closed its border for a period shortly after Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023, when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

Sudan Doctors Network, a local group that has been monitoring violence across the country, said Wednesday that the RSF killed 12 people, including six women, in the town of Bara in North Kordofan which has recently been the scene of fierce battles between the army and the RSF.

The medical group condemned the targeting of what they said were unarmed civilians and warned “of the serious humanitarian consequences of such attacks, which are forcing more citizens to flee their homes and worsening the already dire humanitarian situation.”

The Darfur and Kordofan regions became the epicenter of the Sudan war, with deadly drone attacks frequently reported in Kordofan. A surge in drone strikes in the Sudanese region of Kordofan has taken a growing toll on civilians and hampered aid operations, analysts and humanitarian workers previously said.

Fatma Khaled, The Associated Press