The UN aid chief held a phone call Monday with Sudan’s RSF paramilitary leader on hostilities around El-Obeid, and stressed the need for sustained humanitarian access to the city, his agency said.
Phone Call Details
Tom Fletcher spoke to Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces, “to discuss the escalating hostilities in Sudan, including in El-Obeid in North Kordofan,” the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a statement. Fletcher stressed the need to maintain safe access for humanitarians to reach those in need, as well as safe movement for civilians.
“He also expressed concern over the impact of drone attacks on civilians and the infrastructure they rely on. They also discussed challenges that are impacting the ability of United Nations and NGO partners to carry out life-saving relief efforts, including bureaucratic impediments.”
Strategic Importance of El-Obeid
A strategic hub in the southern Kordofan region, El-Obeid has been encircled for months by the RSF, the paramilitary group that has been fighting Sudan’s army since April 2023. The capital of North Kordofan state, the city sits on a key route linking RSF-held areas in the western Darfur region to army-controlled regions in the east. A city of half a million people that hosts nearly 100,000 refugees displaced by the civil war, in recent weeks El-Obeid has faced its most intense RSF attacks yet.
Concerns of Genocide
The UN has voiced fears that there could be a repeat in El-Obeid of atrocities committed during the RSF’s October 2025 assault on the Sudanese city of El-Fasher. The UN’s independent fact-finding mission on Sudan concluded earlier this year that the siege and capture of El-Fasher bore “the hallmarks of genocide.” And the UN Human Rights Council on Monday ordered an “urgent inquiry” into violations and abuses in El-Obeid, warning of the looming risk of “large-scale atrocities.”
UN Coordinator’s Visit
OCHA said that Denise Brown, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, concluded a mission to El-Obeid on Sunday. Inside the city, “she engaged with partners on the aid response and witnessed the impact of attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure,” it said. Brown said the city had been under “intense drone strikes” by the RSF recently, and “civilian infrastructure is being hit on a regular basis,” including water, power and fuel supplies.
OCHA said it “calls once again for the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, and for all parties to facilitate rapid, safe, unhindered and sustained humanitarian access to all people in need across Sudan.”
