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El Obeid under siege
In Sudan’s North Kordofan state, the city of El Obeid is facing a looming humanitarian and human rights catastrophe as the Rapid Support Forces impose siege-like conditions and intensify drone strikes on infrastructure and the main exit road.
France 24 reported that El Obeid is a strategic prize in a war that has pitted the Sudanese army against the Rapid Support Forces for three years, and that the city of about half a million hosts about 100,000 refugees displaced by violence elsewhere.
The same report said recent attacks hit the main electricity plant and fuel depots, plunging parts of the city into darkness and putting water pumps out of service, leaving residents to rely on tankers, wells, and a few water distribution points.
France 24 also quoted a 35-year-old displaced woman, Agsam Hamad, saying, "Nous faisons de longues distances pour cette eau et elle est imbuvable".
In Geneva, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that the indicators coming from El Obeid are "clear and unequivocal" as a new catastrophe forms in the strategic city.
Drone strikes and warnings
The UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, held at Britain’s request with support from Germany, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands, focused on military and humanitarian escalation in El Obeid and its surroundings amid reports of a continued siege by the Rapid Support Forces for weeks.
عكاظ said the RSF intensified drone strikes in the past three weeks, and that between June 6 and June 28 there were no fewer than 15 drone attacks that killed around 45 civilians and injured 41 others.
The same account said UN agencies and local authorities accused the RSF of targeting vital infrastructure including electricity and water stations, fuel depots, and fuel tankers, while attacks on main electricity transformer stations plunged large parts of the city into darkness for about three weeks.
عرب 48 quoted Britain’s representative Eleanor Sanders saying, "The increase in drone strikes has killed civilians, destroyed civilian infrastructure."
عرب 48 also reported that Türk warned the situation is an acute warning that should reach heads of state and governments, adding that his office documented 15 drone strikes on El Obeid and its surroundings between June 6 and June 28, killing at least 45 civilians and injuring 41 others.
Risk of Fasher-style collapse
International warnings repeatedly compare El Obeid’s trajectory to El Fasher, where the Rapid Support Forces were accused of atrocities during an 18-month siege, and Türk said the indicators in El Obeid resemble the days before Fasher’s fall.
France 24 reported that Mohamed Refaat of the International Organization for Migration warned the city was approaching a total siege, saying civilians could soon "ne plus être capables de partir ni de revenir".
عرب 48 added that Rifaat warned that if the world does not act now, a repetition in El Obeid could involve a new wave of displacement potentially involving around 500,000 people or more.
عرب 48 also said Türk noted many residents are selling their property to flee, but rising transport costs and road attacks prevent many from leaving, while people remaining in El Obeid face risk of arbitrary detention.
Al-Jazeera Net framed the stakes as a “war economy” and said Türk urged countering it, while also describing the UN High Commissioner’s warning that a new humanitarian and human rights catastrophe is unfolding in the strategic city.
