UN warns of impending catastrophe as RSF encircles Sudan's al-Obeid

Siege of al-Obeid

Civilians in and around al-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, have been living under siege-like conditions for 18 months, according to the UN human rights office. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have steadily cut off access, reinforced positions, and carried out artillery and drone strikes. At least 45 civilians were killed and 41 injured in 15 drone strikes recorded between June 6 and 28. The city, one of Sudan's largest commercial centres, lies about 250 km south-west of Khartoum and hosts many displaced people from other conflict areas.

The signs from al-Obeid are clear and unmistakable: Another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan, this time in the capital of the strategic state of North Kordofan.

Pattern of atrocities

The RSF's encirclement mirrors the tactics used before the capture of El Fasher in Darfur in October 2025, where the UN estimated 6,000 people were killed in three days. Mona Rishmawi, a member of the UN's Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, told the emergency session that drone attacks are targeting power stations, fuel depots, water facilities, transport routes, markets, schools, and residential areas. The UN human rights chief also pointed to summary executions, abductions, torture, and sexual violence along displacement routes in the Kordofan region.

We have seen this modus operandi by the RSF before. In El Fasher and elsewhere, growing encirclement was followed by restrictions on movement, disruption of aid and food supplies, damage to critical infrastructure, aerial and artillery bombardment and ultimately indiscriminate attacks against civilians.

International response

Britain called the urgent debate at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, with backing from Germany, Ireland, Norway, and the Netherlands. British Human Rights Ambassador Eleanor Sanders warned that up to 500,000 civilians were at risk of suffering atrocities. Sudan's foreign minister, Mohieldin Salim Ahmed Ibrahim, urged the international community to stop weapons deliveries to the RSF. The war, which pits the Sudanese Armed Forces (backed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt) against the RSF (backed by the United Arab Emirates), has raged for more than three years.

We cannot allow a repeat of preventable atrocities.

Calls for accountability

The International Committee of the Red Cross stressed that civilian suffering is not inevitable. Analyst Jan Pospisil noted that while the conflict is not a literal proxy war, international support keeps it going, yet no external actor has the leverage to force a ceasefire. The UN fact-finding mission has previously found that both sides committed war crimes, with the RSF accused of repeated atrocities and ethnic violence in Darfur.

Civilian suffering in Sudan is not inevitable: much of the harm over the past three years, since the beginning of combat in Khartoum, and nowadays in al-Obeid, could have been prevented had the laws of war, and international humanitarian law, been respected.