CAIRO (AP) — Paramilitary attacks on a strategic city of a half-million people in central Sudan have raised international alarm that another round of mass violence against civilians is being planned as the country’s war surges into its fourth year.“We must not allow the horrors of El Fasher to be repeated in El Obeid,” a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.More than 6,000 people were killed in three days last year when the Rapid Support Forces seized el-Fasher in an attack that U.N. experts said bore the “hallmarks of genocide.”The U.N. Security Council has said it is alarmed by reports of “substantial” reinforcements by the RSF around el-Obeid in North Kordofan. The United States, Britain and some other European countries have warned of “escalating atrocity risks.”RSF deployments around el-Obeid suggest preparations for an offensive to retake it and whether the city ultimately falls depends on several factors, experts told The Associated Press.The RSF didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
El-Obeid is a strategic battleground in SudanThe city on Sudan’s main east-west road leading to the Nile Valley and the capital, Khartoum, is strategic for Sudan’s army as it battles the RSF. The military broke more than yearlong siege on the city early last year.The city has a sprawling air base and is home to an infantry division.″El Obeid is important beyond even the strategic implications because it shows what happens when you have two forces that are highly depleted attempting to gain advantage on the other in high proximity,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health.
