EL-OBEID, Sudan, July 8 – Fears are mounting of a potential massacre in Sudan’s frontline city of El-Obeid as escalating drone attacks and an advancing offensive threaten to plunge another major population centre into catastrophe.
The city, currently under the control of the Sudanese army, has become one of the latest flashpoints in Sudan’s three-year civil war against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
A 27-year-old university student, identified only as Sarah for security reasons, described surviving a deadly drone strike at a crowded fuel station.
“The station lit up before everything went dark. In front of us there were injured people, blood, burnt cars and smashed cars,” she told the BBC by phone.
Sarah said she suffered shrapnel wounds to her leg and hand after a second missile struck while she was outside her vehicle.
El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan State, is home to about 500,000 people and hosts one of Sudan’s largest military bases. Despite its strategic importance, the army has struggled to stop repeated drone attacks.
According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), 27 drone strikes hit the city in June, the highest monthly total recorded there since the conflict began.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said at least 45 people were killed and 41 others injured in 15 drone strikes carried out between June 6 and June 28.
Türk also warned that El-Obeid has endured siege-like conditions for the past 18 months, with reports of summary executions, abductions, torture and sexual violence along routes used by civilians fleeing the fighting.
“The signs from El-Obeid are clear and unmistakable: Another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan,” he told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, said control of El-Obeid is crucial because it links RSF-controlled western Sudan with the army-held east.
“If you control El-Obeid, you control the road to the capital, Khartoum and Omdurman, and so the army has to defend El-Obeid,” he told the BBC.
Medical workers say hospitals are struggling to cope with the growing number of casualties.
One doctor described treating victims after nearly every drone attack, with many suffering severe limb and head injuries. She recalled one of the most heartbreaking cases involving a seven-month-old baby whose hand had to be amputated before the infant later died.
“The situation is frightening. You leave your house as if you will never return. We are really suffering from the drones—no one knows how and when they will die,” the doctor said.
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard has warned that El-Obeid risks suffering violence similar to that witnessed in El-Fasher after an 18-month siege by the RSF.
“What happened in El-Fasher is not an oddity. It is not a moment of madness. It is a playbook,” she said.
The United Nations said fighting in El-Fasher last year bore the “hallmarks of genocide,” with more than 6,000 people reportedly killed in just three days. The mostly Arab RSF has been accused of targeting non-Arab communities, allegations the group has repeatedly denied.
Responding to warnings of a possible massacre in El-Obeid, the RSF said it would “work diligently” to ensure the protection of civilians and insisted its operations comply fully with international law.