Sudan’s El-Obeid Under Siege: “Civilians Should Not Have to Wait for Death”
El-OBEID, SUDAN—Masjid Maki had already been displaced once. The 53-year-old schoolteacher fled the city of An-Nuhud with her husband, Hussein Abd al-Baqi, 66, and their three children at the end of May 2025.
When they reached El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, roughly 220 kilometers from An-Nuhud, they rented a house in the Qubba neighborhood, mistakenly believing they had found safety.
Sudan has been at war since April 2023, when a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, collapsed into an open conflict that has since devastated the country and killed and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Since June 9, drone strikes attributed to the RSF have hit El-Obeid repeatedly, killing more than 40 people and wounding dozens, according to the local emergency response team. Most of the city’s fuel stations have been destroyed. The electricity generation plant has been struck.
