The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued an urgent appeal on Thursday, June 18, calling for an immediate halt to an imminent offensive by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against the city of El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan State in Sudan. According to the UN, hundreds of thousands of civilians could face serious human rights violations if the fighting escalates further.
International concern has grown following reports of a significant RSF troop buildup around the strategic city, which serves as a key transportation and supply hub linking central Sudan to the Darfur region. El-Obeid is also home to more than 100,000 internally displaced people, bringing the total number of civilians at risk to approximately 500,000.
In a statement delivered to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, several Western nations, including Norway, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, and the Netherlands, called on the RSF to immediately cease its offensive operations. These countries also urged the international community to increase pressure on both warring parties to prevent further atrocities and ensure humanitarian access to affected populations.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that the current situation bears similarities to the violence and abuses previously witnessed in other parts of Sudan, particularly in Darfur. He emphasized that residents of El-Obeid have already endured conditions resembling a siege for more than eighteen months and cautioned that international inaction could lead to a major humanitarian catastrophe.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as “Hemedti.” The war has displaced nearly 14 million people and has been described by the United Nations as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
As fighting increasingly shifts toward the strategically important Kordofan region, the UN is calling for immediate international action to protect civilians and prevent another humanitarian disaster in Sudan.
