El-Obeid under threat from RSF — over 1,000 civilians killed by drones in Sudan in 2026

In El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, humanitarian workers are preparing to see columns of civilians leave even before the first pick-ups of the Rapid Support Forces enter the city. On June 20, the UN special envoy for Sudan, Pekka Haavisto, called Mohamed Hamdan Daglo to ask him not to launch the assault. Such a call does not stop an offensive. It mainly signals that observers in New York, Port Sudan, and on the ground consider the threat credible.

El-Obeid is not a secondary location. The city commands the routes that connect Khartoum, Darfur, and the south of the country. Whoever controls this crossroads can cut off food supplies, move reinforcements westward, and exert pressure on the rear lines of the Sudanese army. For several months, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, have been keeping the city under pressure. The risk is therefore not a tactical surprise, but a political decision to transform a slow siege into urban battle.

A city locked by roads

On a map, El-Obeid appears far from the most publicized fronts of Khartoum and Darfur. On a military map, it is at the center. The axes that pass through Kordofan are significant enough to sustain a campaign but vulnerable enough to be choked by a few checkpoints, drones, and mobile raids. From experience, a besieged city at a crossroads does not fall only due to a lack of ammunition. It also empties out of fear of not being able to leave.

The spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General indicated that humanitarian agencies are preparing for massive population movements. The wording is cautious, but it describes a harsh operational reality. When humanitarian teams prepare for large-scale departures, it means that the roads, shelters, water points, and clinics have already been recalculated as if the city were to be struck.

The precedent of El-Fasher weighs on every decision

The comparison with El-Fasher is not rhetorical. In October 2025, the assault on this city in Darfur was described by the UN as bearing the marks of genocide. El-Obeid is not El-Fasher, and the available reports do not yet allow us to assert that the same scenario is unfolding. But the conditions of danger are visible: prolonged siege, community polarization, trapped civilians, mobile firepower, and limited independent access to threatened neighborhoods.

This is where the analysis must remain disciplined. Casualty reports from Sudan are often incomplete, sometimes contradictory, and each side manipulates the numbers. But the trends converge. The Defense Post reports that the conflict has already killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million Sudanese. The UN speaks of the largest global crisis of displacement and hunger. A new assault on El-Obeid would add a battle at a crossroads to a war already structured by famine.

Drones change the depth of the front

The danger for El-Obeid does not only come from ground columns. It also comes from the normalization of remote strikes. On June 15, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated that more than 1,000 civilians had been killed by drone strikes in Sudan between January and May 2026. This figure not only provides a scale of violence. It shows that drones have become a regular tool of coercion against urban areas and infrastructure.

ACLED notes the same dynamic on the RSF side. In May, a strike against the Abu Alama military base in the Khartoum area reportedly killed at least 24 Sudanese Armed Forces soldiers. Other strikes targeted al-Tina in North Darfur, as well as military camps and Khartoum International Airport. The message is clear: the front is no longer just where men fight. It is also where drones can reach depots, bases, and runways.

A Sudanese war spilling over its borders

The regional dimension makes El-Obeid even more sensitive. ACLED notes that the Sudanese government has accused the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia of being involved in certain strikes, claiming that drones were launched from Bahir Dar. Abu Dhabi and Addis Ababa have denied this. Ethiopia responded by accusing the Sudanese Armed Forces of supporting mercenaries linked to the Tigray People's Liberation Front. It is not yet an interstate war. But these are the words and movements that precede border incidents.

The direct risk of war between Sudan and Ethiopia remains low, as both states are absorbed by their own internal fractures. The useful risk to monitor is lower and more concrete: an identified drone too quickly, a patrol crossing a gray area, a local commander wanting to show his firmness. Sudan is already fragmented enough for these incidents to become crisis multipliers.

What the RSF will seek

If the RSF launches the assault, their goal will likely not just be to plant a flag in the city center. They will seek to isolate the garrisons, control exits, prevent reinforcements from the regular army from arriving via the east-west axes, and force local notables to negotiate neighborhood by neighborhood. In this type of operation, taking a market, a gas station, or a bridge can be as significant as taking an administrative building.

For the Sudanese Armed Forces, El-Obeid is a position that must be held, but not at any cost. A defense that is too rigid could turn the city into a trap for civilians. A poorly prepared retreat would open Kordofan to deeper penetration by the RSF. Between these two bad options, the army will likely seek to maintain enough presence to prevent a quick victory while using artillery and drones against opposing columns. This is precisely the scenario that makes civilian neighborhoods vulnerable.

The strategic signal

El-Obeid is a test. Not a moral test, as the Sudanese war has long since failed that. A military test. If the RSF can threaten a central city in Kordofan while striking deep with drones, then the Sudanese army is no longer defending a continuous line, but a series of islets connected by uncertain roads. This geography favors mobile forces and is brutal for civilians.

The next alert may not come from an official statement. It may come from a closed road to Bara, a massive departure towards the villages to the south, or a strike against a depot that will make the defense of the city more costly. In El-Obeid, the critical point is simple: as long as the exits remain open, the city breathes. The day they close, the siege becomes a battle.