‘The situation is terrible’: aid workers on life in Sudanese city pummelled by drone strikes
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- El Obeid was hit by 15 drone strikes between June 6–28 killing at least 45 people and injuring 41, according to the UN human rights office, with aid workers describing the past weekend's attacks as the most violent yet — striking schools, hospitals, fuel stations, the main power station, and Starlink gathering points.
- Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told an urgent Geneva debate called by the UK and backed by Germany, Ireland, Norway, and the Netherlands that El Obeid shows "another human rights catastrophe is unfolding" — a "red alert" requiring heads of state to act.
- Amnesty International released a report this week finding the RSF committed ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in its capture of El Fasher last year, which a UN fact-finding mission had already said bore the "hallmarks of genocide" against non-Arab communities.
- A Yale Humanitarian Research Lab report documented damage to electricity generation, fuel storage, and the main market "consistent with intentional bombardment of civilian infrastructure necessary for the sustainment of life," alongside 700+ new temporary IDP structures in one month and roughly 30 miles of newly built SAF defensive positions.
- ACLED recorded 27 drone strikes around El Obeid last month — the highest monthly total since the war between the SAF (led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan) and the RSF (led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo) erupted in April 2023 — while the city of 500,000 already hosts about 100,000 displaced people.
- The Raoul Wallenberg Centre and a coalition of civil organizations referred officials based in the UAE, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt to the International Criminal Court "for aiding and abetting atrocity crimes" in Darfur through arms, mercenaries, financing, and logistical support.
Why it matters: The international community's warnings about El Fasher preceded a documented massacre; El Obeid now shows the same playbook, with Yale documenting defensive positions consistent with a planned siege of a city already sheltering 100,000 displaced people. Aid workers report residents cannot flee because the same drone campaign has destroyed fuel stations, spiking transport costs and trapping civilians alongside the ~100,000 IDPs the city already hosts.
