The Siege of El Obeid: UN and US Warn of Genocidal Atrocities as RSF Closes In

10 Days of Drone Strikes: The Air Campaign Against Civilians

The warnings come against the backdrop of a relentless aerial assault on the city.

• The RSF launched a sustained campaign of drone strikes beginning on Wednesday, June 10, 2026, which continued for at least 10 consecutive days .
• The UN Security Council confirmed that the strikes killed at least 50 civilians in El Obeid and North Kordofan .
• The attacks have been deliberately aimed at civilian life. One drone strike hit a funeral procession at a cemetery, killing at least four mourners . Another attack on a residential area killed 13 people, including eight children .
• This local escalation is part of a broader trend of drone warfare. The UN rights chief reported that drone strikes killed more than 1,000 civilians across Sudan in just the first five months of 2026 alone .

A City Under Siege: The Humanitarian Crisis

El Obeid and its people have been under relentless pressure for over 18 months.

• The UN Security Council and humanitarian agencies warn that approximately 500,000 civilians in and around El Obeid face an extreme risk of mass atrocities and are trapped under siege-like conditions .
• By February 2026, the city was reported to be "besieged from three sides" . While the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) briefly broke an earlier siege in February 2025, the RSF has since re-tightened its grip, with heavy fighting continuing .
• The blockade has had a devastating effect on aid. A 57-kilometer earth berm constructed by the RSF has escalated the blockade on humanitarian aid, contributing to famine conditions declared in parts of North Kordofan in September 2025 .

A Lethal Precedent: The Echo of El Fasher

The international community's alarm is amplified because the RSF's strategy in El Obeid has a terrifying recent precedent.

• A situation report titled "A second El Fasher?" warned that the RSF's encirclement and bombardment of El Obeid mirrors the pattern used before the capture of El Fasher .
• The RSF's takeover of El Fasher in Darfur in October 2025 involved large-scale civilian killings, including the massacre of at least 460 health workers and patients, summary executions, and ethnically motivated violence — described by the UN as bearing "hallmarks of genocide" .
• As early as December 2025, the UN migration agency (IOM) said El Obeid appeared to be just "one or two steps away from the abyss that has already consumed El Fasher" .

The Broader Context of the Sudan Conflict

The crisis in El Obeid is the latest front in a war that has devastated the entire country.

• Since war erupted between the SAF and RSF in April 2023, more than 11 million people have been displaced internally and across borders, making it the world's largest displacement crisis .
• At least 11,300 civilians were killed in 2025 alone — nearly triple the number in 2024 — while many thousands remain missing or unidentified . The total death toll, including combatants, is far higher.
• The war, which entered its fourth year in 2026, has been marked by widespread sexual violence, ethnic cleansing, and the systematic use of starvation as a weapon of war .

The Bottom Line: El Obeid is the most dangerous flashpoint in Sudan today. With the RSF encircling the city, launching deadly drone strikes, and poised for a ground offensive, the UN, the US, and dozens of nations warn that 500,000 civilians are facing an "imminent risk of mass atrocities" that could replay the horrors seen in El Fasher.