San Francisco Frontiers - UN issues 'red alert' over 'catastrophe' in Sudan's El-Obeid

Addressing an urgent debate at the UN Human Rights Council, Turk urged world leaders to take immediate action to prevent atrocity crimes.

"The signs from El-Obeid are clear and unmistakable: another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan," he warned.

"Civilians have been subjected to siege-like conditions for 18 months, battered by relentless drone strikes as the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) battle for control.

"This is not a drill. It is a red alert that needs to land on the desks of heads of state and government around the world.

"Their phones should be running hot in the coming days."

The UN's top rights body was holding a rare urgent debate on the human rights situation around El-Obeid, following a request by Britain on behalf of a group of countries.

In recent days, the UN, several governments and aid organisations have warned of a possible RSF offensive on El-Obeid.

- 'Appalling suffering' -

Sudan's conflict erupted in April 2023 between the regular army and the paramilitary RSF.

Kordofan -- home to oil deposits and the RSF's most powerful paramilitary allies -- remains a key battleground.

El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, 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, El-Obeid has, in recent weeks, faced its most intense RSF attacks yet.

The army has struggled to stop the RSF from reimposing a blockade through drone strikes targeting the city and the main road out.

Recent attacks have hit the main power station and fuel depots, plunged neighbourhoods into darkness and shut down water pumps.

Turk said the fear was "a repeat of the widespread atrocities" documented during the RSF offensive on the city of El-Fasher in North Darfur state last year, in which at least 6,000 people were killed, according to his office.

The UN's independent fact-finding mission on Sudan in February concluded that the siege and capture of El-Fasher had inflicted "three days of absolute horror" and bore "the hallmarks of genocide".

Turk said the leaders of the warring parties bore the greatest responsibility for three years of "appalling suffering", but behind them, foreign players were "benefiting from the carnage".

- Rape, pillage and murder -

Britain, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway presented a draft resolution to the 47-country rights council, which will be decided upon on Monday.

It strongly condemns the escalating RSF violence in and around El-Obeid, and calls for "an immediate and complete ceasefire by all parties".

Britain's representative Eleanor Sanders told the council that the RSF had "raped, pillaged, and murdered their way through El-Fasher".

Now, "El-Obeid is on the precipice of an atrocity", she said, and the council "must act with urgency to help prevent further harm to civilians".

Speaking from Port Sudan, the UN migration agency's mission chief in the country said that civilians were being deliberately targeted.

"If we don't act now to stop what is happening in El-Obeid, we will see another El-Fasher. We will see another displacement of maybe 500,000 or more," the International Organization for Migration's Mohamed Refaat told journalists.

As for whether humanitarians had the resources to deal with such a scenario, he warned: "Absolutely not. Our system has been depleted from every resource."

R.Moore--SFF