UNSC warns ‘imminent risk of mass atrocities’ as RSF amasses troops around El Obeid
RSF’s massacres in El Fasher, which had the “defining characteristics of genocide,” should not be allowed to be repeated in El Obeid.
Rapid Support Forces unit patrol during a rally in Garawee town, north of Sudan, on June 15, 2019. Photo: AP
On Saturday, June 20, the UN Security Council raised concerns over “the imminent risk of mass atrocities” on the civilians in El Obeid, capital of war-torn Sudan’s North Kordofan state.
The city has been encircled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been at war with its former ruling partner, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), since April 2023.
Amid an increasing build-up of RSF troops around the city, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, warned on June 18 of an “imminent offensive,” with the risk of “serious international crimes.”
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, is also “alarmed” by the RSF’s “substantial military reinforcements around El Obeid,” said his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, adding, “We must not allow the horrors of El Fasher to be repeated in El Obeid.”
The city of El Fasher was the last major SAF holdout in the vast Darfur region in western Sudan. Laying siege for over 500 days to cut off the supplies of food, medicines, and other essentials, the RSF caused a famine and subjected the population weakened by hunger to repeated bombardment before finally overrunning their defenses.
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