Fears that the city of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, could become a new and horrific epicenter of Sudan's devastating war dominated Friday's UN Security Council session, with the United Nations warning that the country had entered a very dangerous phase as the fighting expanded and moved to new fronts that threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of stranded civilians.
The session witnessed open briefings followed by closed consultations pursuant to UN Resolution 2715, amid an international consensus on the absence of any prospect for a military solution, and an emphasis on the need to impose an urgent humanitarian truce.
Humanitarian catastrophe threatens in Kordofan
In her briefing to the Council, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo said that the Kordofan region has become the current center of gravity of the armed conflict, warning that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continue to strengthen their deployment and near-imposed siege around the city of El Obeid for the past 18 months.
Towns around the city have seen a serious uptick in drone use from both sides of the conflict over the past two weeks, making the war more deadly and widespread, turning bridges and transport corridors into military targets, isolating communities and disrupting relief routes, DiCarlo said.
Hanan Suleiman, UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director, said the escalation of violence in North Kordofan, particularly in Obeid, is putting more than 500,000 civilians – including thousands of children – at immediate risk of killings and grave abuses.
The organization warned that any large-scale battle inside the city would deepen instability and cause new waves of displacement towards debilitating areas already suffering from severe living pressures.
Chemical Weapons Accusations and U.S. Sanctions
During the session, Massad Boulos, Senior Advisor to the US President for African and Arab Affairs, revealed the seriousness of the situation on the ground, likening the ongoing mobilization around Al-Obeid to the atrocities and bloody siege that took place in the city of El Fasher in North Darfur.
Boulos accused both sides of prolonging the war and destroying infrastructure, directly accusing the RSF of committing atrocities including "genocide" and of using chemical weapons to the Sudanese army in 2024.
Based on these data, the United States announced the imposition of new sanctions on 8 individuals and entities linked to procurement and recruitment networks that supply weapons and drones to both sides.
Washington called on Port Sudan to fully comply with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and cooperate with the international organization, noting that the Sudanese Sovereignty Council has repeatedly rejected proposals for a humanitarian truce, including the updated draft on the table.
Port Sudan's Conditions and Burhan's Position on Negotiations
Sudan's representative to the UN Security Council made it clear that Khartoum welcomes any external facilitation, but stressed that any sustainable settlement must be purely Sudanese.
The Sudanese delegate to the ceasefire stipulated that the "militias" should not take advantage of the truce in the military buildup, considering the withdrawal of the Rapid Support Forces from the Darfur and Kordofan regions as a basic and essential condition for the establishment of any truce.
In the same context, the head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, confirmed in a speech in Khartoum that the government will not participate in any negotiations that do not guarantee the dismantling of the "rebel militia" and the surrender of its weapons and its eradication from all parts of the country. Al-Burhan vowed that the army will continue its military operations to expel the Rapid Support Forces from Kordofan and Darfur, as it did in Khartoum and Al-Jazeera, considering that the current war directly targets the Sudanese people.
The armed conflict in Sudan between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is entering its fourth year since it erupted in mid-April 2023, causing the worst and largest crisis of displacement and hunger currently witnessed by the world, with data from UNHCR and UNICEF indicating that there are more than 3.5 million refugees and about 6.5 million internally displaced people.
The current session of the Security Council coincides with a broad human rights movement, with 38 NGOs (including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) warning the UN Human Rights Council of the risk of imminent atrocities in El Obeid, calling for accountability for external parties – including the UAE – that provide parties to the conflict with advanced weapons and drones and contribute to prolonging the war.
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