The residents of El Obeid, a large city in North Kordofan, in the central Sudanlive in fear of an attack by paramilitary forces, following the capture of El Faser in Darfur by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In this strategic region, many fear that their city will be his next target waras reported by AFP.
As of April 2023, Sudan has been in open war between the regular army, under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the DTY of Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, with both sides accused of serious violations. El Faser’s fall on October 26 followed a wave of reports of rapes, kidnappings and massacres of civilians, and the army now controls only the eastern part of the country, part of central Sudan and the capital Khartoum.
Between Darfur and Khartoum, the oil-rich region of Kordofan is now emerging as the next major front of conflict. The SDF captured the city of Bara last week and is now massing its forces around El Obeid, about 400 kilometers southwest of Khartoum, home to about half a million people. An attack in the area has already killed around 40 people, according to the UN, while the army says it repelled a drone attack.
Residents who spoke to AFP describe a city in a state of constant tension. “We are afraid, after what happened in El Fasser,” says one resident. Another explains that they live “in fear”, despite efforts by local authorities to reassure them, especially after the fall of Bara and the wave of displaced people towards El Obeid and other areas.
At the diplomatic level, the ceasefire proposal promoted by Saudi Arabia, the United States, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates remains, for now, an empty letter. The DTY says they support it, but the army remains silent, while the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has warned of a possible escalation of the conflict in Kordofan.
Since the start of the war, tens of thousands of people have been killed and nearly 12 million Sudanese have been displaced within or outside the country. According to the UN, Sudan is now the scene of the most serious ongoing humanitarian crisis in the world.