Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are battling the army for control of North Kordofan, opening a dangerous new phase in a war that began in April 2023 and has caused what the United Nations has called “the world’s worst crisis”.
After capturing the strategic town of Bara around 10 days ago, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are now besieging El-Obeid, the state capital. At least 40 people were killed there on Tuesday, according to the UN.
Residents fear a repeat of atrocities seen in other towns recently seized by the paramilitaries.
The fall of El-Fasher, capital of neighbouring North Darfur, last week has emboldened the RSF to expand their control beyond Darfur into Kordofan. The violence in El-Fasher also overshadowed the fall of Bara a few days earlier, where similar crimes were reported.
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The Sudanese Doctors Network, which documents violence across the country, said that “dozens of bodies are piled up in houses in Bara” and that families are being prevented from retrieving them.
“It’s a crime against humanity,” the group said in a statement, denouncing “persistent silence in the face of these crimes”. “It’s shameful,” the statement added.
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Bodies in the streets
An RSF member confirmed on Sunday that “all our forces have converged on the Bara front”.
The town, like El-Fasher, has been cut off from outside help. No medical or humanitarian services are operating there.
Last week, Martha Pobee, the UN’s assistant secretary-general for Africa, warned of “vast atrocities” and “ethnically motivated reprisals” by the RSF in Bara, describing a pattern similar to that seen in Darfur.
The number of missing people in Bara continues to rise, along with the waves of residents fleeing in desperate conditions, the Sudanese Doctors Network said, adding that: “They are fleeing on foot, without water or food and without medicine.”
Around 36,000 civilians have fled North Kordofan in a week, according to the International Organisation for Migration, fearing RSF attacks.
As the army and paramilitaries fight for control of El-Obeid, residents told French news agency AFP that entire towns have become military targets and people no longer dare to work in their fields.
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Strategic prize
El-Obeid, under imminent threat of RSF attack, is a key logistics and command hub linking Darfur to the capital Khartoum. It also has an airport.
The RSF are preparing to attack Babnusa, another important town in North Kordofan that they are besieging and where the army remains entrenched.
Civilians are fleeing mainly from areas where massacres have taken place, such as Bara and Om Dam Haj Ahmad.
In the latter, nearly 400 civilians were killed on Thursday by the RSF, the Sudanese Doctors Network reported. The same day, an unknown number of people died in Zaribat al-Sheikh Borii in a drone strike.
On Monday, around 40 people were also killed in another strike in Louaib, a village east of El-Obeid, according to the army.
The victims, all civilians, were gathered for a funeral, the North Kordofan government said. “A crime that adds to those already committed by the RSF,” the governorate wrote.
The RSF have not responded.
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No end in sight
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The army has carried out attacks against RSF positions in North and West Kordofan and targeted reinforcements coming from Darfur.
On Tuesday, it intensified air strikes on RSF-held areas. The paramilitaries said they shot down a military cargo plane over Babnusa just after it dropped ammunition to army forces trapped in the city. The crew members were killed.
Despite mounting international pressure for a ceasefire, both sides remain determined to seize territory.
Sudan’s defence minister said on Tuesday evening that the war against the paramilitaries would continue, after a government meeting that discussed a United States proposal to halt the fighting.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate end to the conflict, warning that the crisis was becoming “uncontrollable”.
This story was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s Houda Ibrahim
