El‑Obeid Under Siege: Drone Strikes Kill Dozens as Sudan Warfront City Faces Humanitarian Crisis

A 27‑year‑old university student identified only as Sarah was standing at a crowded fuel station in el‑Obeid—a city on the front line of Sudan’s civil war—when a drone struck without warning.

She recalled that the station burst into light before everything went dark. “In front of us there were injured people, blood, burnt cars, and smashed cars,” she said.

To protect her safety in a city that has become a flashpoint in the three‑year conflict between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the student’s real name has been withheld.

In a phone interview with the BBC, Sarah said she was fortunate to survive the attack but had been injured.

“I got shrapnel in my leg and hand because I was outside the car when the second missile struck,” she added.

El‑Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state with a population of roughly 500,000, is currently under army control and hosts one of the largest military bases in central Sudan.

However, the army has been unable to repel the drone strikes; according to the violence‑monitoring group Acled, 27 strikes hit the city in June, the highest monthly total since the conflict began.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk reported that at least 45 people were killed and 41 injured in 15 drone strikes carried out between 6 and 28 June.

He added that for the past 18 months the city has endured siege‑like conditions, with summary executions, abductions, torture and sexual violence occurring along the routes used by people fleeing the conflict.

“The signs from el‑Obeid are clear and unmistakable: another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan,” Turk said last week in an address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab in the United States, told the BBC that el‑Obeid is strategically significant for both sides, situated between the RSF‑controlled western part of the country and the army‑held eastern region.

“If you control el‑Obeid, you control the road to the capital, Khartoum, and its twin city Omdurman; therefore the army must defend the city,” he said.

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