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The Tigray Peace Forces (TPF), a pro-government militia, said on 2 October it had captured Milazat, about 20 kilometres south-east of Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia's Tigray region. Its commander claimed the forces of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) had been wiped out; the claim cannot be verified while communications with Tigray remain cut. Residents said banks and shops in Mekelle had closed and some senior TPLF leaders had left. A battle for the city would push more civilians into Afar and Amhara and raise pressure on Eritrea, which shares an 800-kilometre border with Tigray. Watch whether federal forces enter Mekelle or negotiate its handover.
Sudan's army said on 2 October it had captured al-Mazroub, which it called the largest stronghold of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in North Kordofan. The town, about 90 kilometres west of Bara, links North and West Kordofan; videos reviewed by Radio Tamazuj appeared to show army and allied Darfur Joint Forces fighters there, while the RSF did not comment. The army says it has recently taken 11 areas in North Kordofan, including Um Sharo and Sodari. Holding al-Mazroub would let it threaten RSF supply routes towards Darfur and open a path into West Kordofan. The RSF's response around El Obeid will show whether the front holds.
Deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak passed 4,000 on 2 October, with 4,018 deaths among about 8,300 confirmed cases in seven provinces, official figures showed. In Ituri, a patient transit centre burned down after soldiers entered the Kigonze displacement camp, whose roughly 19,000 residents fled, leaving most Ebola contacts there untraced. The outbreak, detected in May and caused by the Bundibugyo strain, is the deadliest in the country's history. Displaced people carrying the virus into North Kivu, where six cases are confirmed in M23-held areas, would put Uganda and Rwanda at greater risk. The violence threatens the slowdown officials had reported in Ituri.
