Britain and six European countries (France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway) have launched an urgent international appeal for an immediate cessation of violence surrounding the city of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, following "credible indications" that the RSF is ready to launch an imminent ground offensive on the city it has been besieging for months.
"This is a critical moment and the international community must act," the joint statement issued by the British Foreign Office said. British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper warned of a repeat of the atrocities and grave violations of killing, looting and rape that the city of El Fasher witnessed in 2025 after its fall after an 18-month siege, stressing that El Obeid is now on the brink of a similar humanitarian catastrophe.
In a related context, the United States entered the line of de-escalation, as Musaad Boulos, Advisor to the US President for Arab and African Affairs, announced that Washington urged the leadership of the Rapid Support Forces, during direct contacts, to avoid any escalatory steps that threaten civilians, coinciding with the UN Security Council's warnings of an imminent danger of beating the drums of large-scale atrocities in the region.
March paralyzing life and water jars for $20
On the ground, military and human rights sources reported that Rapid Support Forces drones were conducting near-daily strikes targeting army sites and vital civilian facilities inside El Obeid, including the main power facility, gas stations, food trucks, and a fuel tanker near a school complex, resulting in dozens of casualties among dead and wounded.
These attacks and the suffocating blockade have led to a horrific deterioration in living conditions, with food prices jumping by 60 to 300 per cent in just two months. The thirst crisis reached unprecedented levels, with the price of a 10-liter water jar reaching about 15,000 Sudanese pounds ($20).
The head of the IOM mission in Sudan, Mohamed Rifaat, said aid agencies had been forced to suspend their operations due to the sharp deterioration of security on the roads leading to the city. Unless the blockade is lifted and humanitarian aid is allowed to enter unconditionally within weeks or two months at most, Refaat warned, El Obeid will officially slide into the tragic level of famine already declared in El Fasher and Kadugli, pointing out that the recent escalation has forced more than 130,000 people into forced displacement.
Geographical division and tearing up the national fabric
As the war enters its fourth year since it broke out in April 2023 between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), the facts on the ground have imposed a sharp geographical and social division, as the country has practically split into two administrative areas:
The first region: Administered by the military, the capital includes Khartoum and most of the northern, eastern, and central regions.
Area II: Administered by the Tas'id Alliance (which includes the Rapid Support Forces) and includes the Darfur region, large parts of Kordofan and Blue Nile, an area that accounts for about 45 percent of Sudan's total area of 1.8 million square kilometers.
This geographical divide is accompanied by an accelerated collapse of values and society, fueled by the spread of hate speech and ethnic and regional mobilization, with the parties accusing each other of targeting civilians based on identity or dialect in markets and checkpoints, especially after controversial statements about "Arabs in the diaspora."
Sudanese parliamentarian and former foreign minister Mahdi al-Khalifa stressed that the current war is not measured only by the number of deaths, but also by the deep rift in social relations and the distortion of the bonds of coexistence by turning the tribe into a "human storehouse" and fuel for a proxy war in the absence of an inclusive national project.
Economically, the Sudanese pound continued its historic collapse, as the exchange rate of the US dollar approached the barrier of 6,000 pounds compared to 580 pounds on the eve of the outbreak of the war. Financial expert Omar Sayed Ahmed explained that this deterioration has exacerbated the inflation crisis, which pushed poverty rates to jump to 73%, according to data from the Ministry of Social Welfare, with more than 40% of Sudanese falling into the clutches of acute hunger, topping the United Nations list of the 13 countries whose population faces the threat of famine globally.
Catastrophic Indicators of the Siege of El Obeid and the Repercussions of the Sudan War 2026
Victims of regional drones: At least 880 civilians were killed in Kordofan region as a result of drone strikes between January and April 2026.
General forced displacement: The conflict has displaced and displaced more than 11 to 13 million people internally and externally, according to the statistics of the UN agencies.
Inflation and prices under sieges: The prices of basic commodities in white rose by up to 300%, and the price of 10 liters of water reached $20 (15,000 pounds).
Poverty and hunger map: The general poverty rate in the country has reached 73%, and there are 20 Sudanese regions officially threatened with a declaration of imminent famine.
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