CAIRO — Paramilitary attacks on a strategic city of a half-million people in central Sudan have raised international alarm that another round of mass violence against civilians is being planned as the country’s war surges into its fourth year.
“We must not allow the horrors of El Fasher to be repeated in El Obeid,” a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.
More than 6,000 people were killed in three days last year when the Rapid Support Forces seized el-Fasher in an attack that U.N. experts said bore the “hallmarks of genocide.”
The U.N. Security Council has said it is alarmed by reports of “substantial” reinforcements by the RSF around el-Obeid in North Kordofan. The United States, Britain and some other European countries have warned of “escalating atrocity risks.”
RSF deployments around el-Obeid suggest preparations for an offensive to retake it and whether the city ultimately falls depends on several factors, experts told The Associated Press.
The RSF didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The city on Sudan’s main east-west road leading to the Nile Valley and the capital, Khartoum, is strategic for Sudan’s army as it battles the RSF. The military broke more than yearlong siege on the city early last year.
The city has a sprawling air base and is home to an infantry division.
″El Obeid is important beyond even the strategic implications because it shows what happens when you have two forces that are highly depleted attempting to gain advantage on the other in high proximity,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health.
The RSF wants to control the road to Khartoum, which Sudan’s military retook last year, and its sister city, Omdurman, placing them again under threat, creating “havoc for civilians” and making it hard for humanitarian agencies returning to the capital area, Raymond said.
Experts said an attack on el-Obeid would be different from the one on el-Fasher, which followed an 18-month siege and where many killings were ethnically motivated.
″This is not a genocidal move, it’s a tactical one,” Raymond said, warning of possible reprisal killings for those who are seen as allied with the military if the RSF retakes el-Obeid.
The RSF can isolate el-Obeid from multiple directions, but sustaining a siege would cost the paramilitary significant manpower, vehicles and military equipment, said Ali Mahmoud Ali, Sudan researcher with the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, or ACLED.
If the paramilitary manages to take and hold the city, the situation there “could deteriorate rapidly,” he said.
Over recent months, el-Obeid has been subjected to brutal drone strikes by the RSF that have destroyed civilian infrastructure including power facilities and neighborhoods. Drone attacks halso have targeted bridges and key supply routes into the city, according to the U.N.
Taghreed al-Rashid, a 35-year-old resident reached by phone, said she feels reassured by the presence of army forces but is increasingly fearful of drone attacks targeting residential neighborhoods and markets. She said a recent strike on a power facility sparked a water crisis which has led her to pay $5 per barrel of water.
“We’re committed to staying in the city despite our ongoing hardships because forced displacement is a bigger struggle,” al-Rashid said.
The ongoing drone attacks have increased the civilian death toll in the Kordofan region. At least 2,670 people including combatants and civilians were killed in 2025, marking a 600% increase in drone-related deaths and an 81% increase in drone attacks compared to the previous year, ACLED found.
Another el-Obeid resident, Magdy Abdou, said he is able to go to mosques and markets without difficulty but worries about further drone strikes on infrastructure.
Seizing the city would provide the RSF with a base to launch drones at far closer range.
The recent attacks on infrastructure have left civilians with scarce food, fuel, water, health services and transportation, said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office.
“Many civilians are trapped. Those who are able to flee are doing so. The imminent offensive must be halted, and civilians enabled to safely leave the city,” she said.
The RSF’s “force strength is significantly reduced due to defenses and intertribal fighting” and it lacks the personnel to face the army’s expected counterattack, Raymond said.
Still, the RSF has deployed air defense systems in Abu Zabad, West Kordofan, which might serve as a logistical hub for operations targeting el-Obeid and another nearby city, Dilling, and intensify clashes, Ali said.
Since the army broke the siege on el-Obeid last year, the RSF has launched multiple offensives in attempts to reestablish the siege from several directions.
Sudan’s army also is equipped with drones. An army official said recent drone strikes destroyed an RSF battalion and more than 50 armored vehicles in West Kordofan, preventing advances toward North Kordofan and el-Obeid.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said the army has a plan to protect the city’s airspace from RSF drones. Another army official didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The army has prioritized defending el-Obeid and the east-west corridor to the Nile Valley since last year, reflecting a focus on key routes, according to Federico Donelli, associate professor of international relations at the University of Trieste.
″Overall, the SAF appears capable of mounting an organized initial defense, but the key open question is whether it can sustain it against a faster, better-equipped RSF push,” Donelli added.
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Associated Press writer Yassir Abdallah in Shendi, Sudan, contributed to this report.