What Idris announced
Sudanese Prime Minister Kamil Idris told a large crowd in Khartoum North on Sunday 11 January 2026 that his cabinet had formally returned to the national capital after more than two and a half years running the state from Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast. Speaking before the gathering, Idris framed the move as “a message of hope and reassurance to the people of Sudan” and described 2026 as “the year of peace,” according to the primary record carried by QNA, which published the full speech text on 12 January with Khartoum datelined Sunday.
“The government’s return to Khartoum represents a message of hope and reassurance to the people of Sudan, and a commitment to working from the heart of the capital despite the current challenges,” Idris told the audience. QNA also reported the prime minister saying that his government would seek “to meet the aspirations of the Sudanese people through a comprehensive reform program focused on restoring confidence in state institutions, improving services in the healthcare, education, electricity and water” sectors.
The announcement puts a political address on top of an operational move. Ministries, civil servants and the prime minister’s own office had been based in Port Sudan since the early months of the fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which began in April 2023. Returning to Khartoum signals an attempt by the army-backed civilian authority to re-establish a functioning national government inside a capital whose state buildings, ministries and private property sustained widespread destruction during the war.
What he said about the 2026 budget
Idris used the Khartoum North stage to set out the fiscal frame for the year ahead. According to the QNA transcript, he said the 2026 budget had been designed “in such a way as not to impose any new taxes on citizens” while including measures aimed at addressing economic imbalances. He projected that those measures would bring inflation down to “around 70 percent,” raise GDP growth to “about 10 percent,” and narrow the gap between Sudan’s official and parallel-market exchange rates.
Those targets are striking. Independent reporting from The National on 12 January carried an interview-based quote from Idris saying: “Today, we return, and the ‘government of hope’ returns to the national capital. … 2026 will be a year of peace — we will expand public health services, rebuild hospitals and medical centres.” The National’s team, with reporting from Abu Dhabi, Cairo and Kampala, framed the budget as reconstruction-oriented and tied to service delivery rather than new revenues.
What is still uncertain on the ground
The political announcement does not change the geography of the war itself. As The National’s reporters noted, the SAF controls Khartoum and the country’s eastern, central and northern regions, while the RSF continues to hold much of Darfur — a region “roughly the size of France” — and parts of Kordofan, where fighting has shifted since the paramilitary took the army’s last Darfur stronghold. International calls for a humanitarian truce had, at the time of the announcement, failed to produce a halt in the fighting, and both sides had been accused of civilian-targeting attacks.
The 70-percent inflation target is also an aspiration rather than an achieved outcome. Sudan’s underlying macroeconomic conditions, currency-market spread and donor environment were not described in the materials available as of the Khartoum speech. The clearest meaning of Sunday’s event is therefore narrower than either celebration or alarm: an army-backed civilian prime minister publicly relocated his government from Port Sudan to Khartoum, sketched a peace-and-reconstruction frame for 2026, and left the battlefield positions of the SAF and RSF unchanged.
Sources & reporting notes
This article is an original synthesis of a primary official record and an independent English-language report, not eyewitness reporting.
- QNA — Sudan's Government Officially Returns to Khartoum, After 2.5 Years12 January 2026 · Primary record of PM Kamil Idris's Khartoum North speech on 11 January, including the 2026 budget targets and "year of peace" framing.
- The National — Sudanese Prime Minister announces government's return to Khartoum12 January 2026 · Independent English-language reporting from Abu Dhabi, Cairo and Kampala confirming the announcement, the army/RSF front lines and reconstruction priorities.
