Sudan civil war: Civilians used as 'human shields'
The situation in the besieged city of El Obeid in Sudan is worsening by the day, with rights organizations warning of mass atrocities. Children are
The situation in the besieged city of El Obeid in Sudan is worsening by the day, with rights organizations warning of mass atrocities. Children are traumatized and do not dare go to school. Flattened houses and rubble where a school once stood: These are the scenes that have appeared in footage of the Sudanese city of El Obeid published by Ayin Network, a nonpartisan Sudanese media outlet. Drone attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have caused enormous damage to civilian infrastructure, including power grids, transformers, water treatment plants, schools, universities and hospitals in the capital of North Kordofan. The local population is struggling to survive, according to Ahmed Awad, project manager for the UK children's rights organization Plan International, and a native of El Obeid. The city — whose population previously numbered half a million but has now become home to several hundred thousand internally displaced persons (IDP) — is under siege, he added. There is a shortage of medical supplies as well as food and safe, clean water, and Awad said he saw long queues of IDPs at just one water pump: "Sometimes you can spend all day to get one liter of water for two or three days." He added that a drone had hit a primary school and killed three children, which had caused trauma among other children, many of whom no longer dared go to school.
"One of the mothers said three of her children cannot sleep because always they are in fear of something happening again," he said, adding that Plan International tried "to provide psychosocial support" for people scared of drones that could hit a classroom at any time. Sudan's civil war — the limits of humanitarian aid To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video El Obeid: trading hub in the desert El Obeid is a strategically important location. The city is a trading hub in the middle of the desert on the only major route between Sudan's capital, Khartoum — which is controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) — and the western Darfur region, large parts of which are under the control of the RSF. Since the war began in 2023, the city has been captured by the RSF and recaptured by the army and allied militias many times. El Obeid is currently controlled by the army, which has some 13,000 soldiers stationed there, and has been on the front line since fighting shifted from Darfur to Kordofan at the beginning of the year. The RSF has deployed troops to about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) beyond the city limits, and has been using drones to bomb civilian infrastructure.
The BriefWire