Earlier this year, a militia took control of the city of El Fashir, killing most of the tens of thousands of people unable to escape that city, which is the capital of a state in Sudan.
Now, it is advancing on another state capital, the city of El-Obeid, which has about about 1 million people in it.
Shelling by the militia — known as the Rapid Support Forces — shut down medical facilities and water stations in El-Obeid. Shells also hit the city’s electricity substation and fuel stations.
The shelling “resulted in the shutdown” of “dialysis centers and emergency departments,” a news report says. The shelling also shut down several water stations, “further exacerbating” the “daily suffering of citizens and displaced persons” in the encircled city.
Sudan Doctors Network said the “repeated targeting of infrastructure and basic services represents a direct threat to civilians’ lives,” adding that it has worsened conditions for more than 1 million residents and displaced people in the city.
The RSF is targeting civilian facilities in violation of international humanitarian law. Millions of people in Sudan lost power last year due to RSF drone strikes on a key power plant.
The United Nations warned two days ago about a new wave of large-scale violence hitting El-Obeid, as the RSF escalated drone and artillery attacks on the besieged city.
Sudan has been embroiled in a civil war since April 2023. The war has killed around 400,000 people and displaced 13 million people.
The Rapid Support Forces, which seeks to take control of El-Obeid, has already committed genocide in western Sudan, such as against the Masalit people of Sudan’s Darfur region. The RSF also slaughtered tens of thousands of the Zaghawa people, including thousands of children, after seizing the major city of El Fasher. The RSF also has kidnapped thousands of people and held them for ransom, torturing many of them. The RSF has killed at least 250,000 people from non-Arab ethnic groups in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
