OPEN LETTER: World, Don't Look Away From El-Obeid Like You Did From El-Fasher

Introduction: a besieged city, a world looking elsewhere

To you reading these lines from somewhere safe

I am writing you this open letter from my desk, far from the fighting, aware of the privilege that this distance represents while 500,000 residents of El-Obeid, capital of North Kordofan state in Sudan, are today living under the direct threat of a ground offensive by the Rapid Support Forces, better known by the acronym RSF.

On June 20, 2026, the UN Security Council expressed alarm over reports of substantial RSF military reinforcements around the city, explicitly warning of an imminent risk of mass atrocities should the feared offensive materialize.

Why this letter, why now

I am writing this letter because the world has already watched this scenario play out just months ago in El-Fasher, in the Darfur region, where an eighteen-month siege ended last October in killings that claimed roughly 6,000 lives in just three days, acts that the UN and several human rights observers described as comparable in severity to the worst crimes in modern history.

This letter is addressed to anyone who still believes international diplomacy can prevent horror before it happens, rather than settling, as it too often does, for lamenting it once the damage is done.

What actually happened at El-Fasher

Eighteen months of siege before the collapse

The city of El-Fasher, in Darfur, became synonymous with mass atrocities after enduring an eighteen-month siege imposed by RSF forces, a blockade that gradually starved and isolated a civilian population caught between two armed factions with no regard for human life.

When the city finally fell at the end of October 2025, RSF fighters killed roughly 6,000 people in the span of barely three days, a pace of execution that points to systematic intent rather than a mere outburst of wartime violence.

Estimates that vary but remain damning

Estimates of the human toll of the entire Sudanese civil war vary considerably, ranging from 40,000 to 250,000 deaths depending on the source, a gap that shows just how difficult it remains to obtain reliable figures in a country where fighting has continued unabated since April 2023.

What remains beyond dispute, however, is that more than 14 million people have been displaced within Sudan and in neighboring countries according to the United Nations, making this war the largest humanitarian and displacement crisis in the world today.

El-Obeid, the next target in an already written script

A strategic city at the country's crossroads

El-Obeid occupies a crucial strategic position at the crossroads of central Sudan, between Khartoum and the western Darfur region, making it an essential hub for troop movements as well as for the flow of military and humanitarian supplies.

The city, under the control of the Sudanese Armed Forces since February 2025, hosts an important military base as well as a military airfield, infrastructure that explains the major strategic interest its eventual capture holds for the RSF.

An interest that goes beyond simple military logic

According to analyst Hager Ali, of the German institute GIGA, if the RSF managed to retake El-Obeid, it would benefit not only from the city's urban infrastructure and its lucrative gum arabic trade, but could also turn the city into a strategic rear base for launching drones at other targets across the country.

This logistical dimension explains why the arrival of the rainy season in July makes the situation even more urgent: the flight paths of combat drones become less predictable during this period, pushing the RSF to want to secure an operational base closer to its targets before weather conditions complicate its operations.

The voices refusing silence

The UN Secretary-General's warning

The spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in early June that the world must not allow the horrors of El-Fasher to be repeated in El-Obeid, a statement reflecting sincere concern but one that, on its own, will never be enough to stop an assault if armed actors decide to act.

This warning is part of a series of similar alerts issued by the Security Council, several European countries, and the United States, all of whom have flagged the imminent risk of mass atrocities as RSF forces massed around the city.

Kenneth Roth and the accusation of deliberate intent

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, stated bluntly that there is every reason to fear the RSF will continue its mass atrocities if it manages to seize El-Obeid, adding that this armed group has shown total disregard for civilian life, to the point where deliberately killing large numbers of civilians seems to be its primary goal rather than mere collateral damage.

These extremely grave remarks are not those of a lone activist but of an expert internationally recognized for his rigorous work documenting war crimes around the world, which should be enough to alarm any Western government still hesitant to act.

Sudan's cry for help that no one truly hears

The same script, over and over

Amgad Fareid Eltayeb, political and foreign affairs adviser to Sudan's transitional Sovereign Council, summed up this feeling of tragic repetition with chilling clarity, stating that the world is watching the same script reform around El-Obeid, with the same vocabulary of alarm and the same closing line reminding everyone that the world is watching.

According to him, previous warnings failed not for lack of evidence, but because they were never truly designed to become prevention, a devastating accusation against the entire international diplomatic architecture supposedly meant to protect civilian populations.

A direct denunciation of outside complicity

Eltayeb goes further, stating that every statement from the international community that laments the coming atrocity without naming its financier is not a step toward prevention, but a step to avoid it, a scathing criticism implicitly aimed at the RSF's outside backers, notably the United Arab Emirates, accused by several organizations of funding and arming this group.

Philippe Dam, European advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, directly called for those responsible for this funding to be sanctioned, stating that the United Arab Emirates bears proven responsibility for fueling the conflict and the atrocities committed by the RSF.

Western sanctions, an underused tool

What has already been done, timidly

The United States sanctioned the two rival generals, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, head of the RSF, as early as January 2025, a measure later extended to several individuals linked to both factions.

The European Union has also sanctioned individuals and entities linked to both sides of the conflict, but the United Nations itself has never sanctioned the two generals or their respective organizations as a whole, a major institutional gap that considerably limits the reach of international pressure.

What must be done, immediately

Philippe Dam argues that immediate sanctions could still help protect civilians and prevent new atrocities, a position shared by Eltayeb, who goes as far as demanding the official designation of the RSF as a terrorist organization to further complicate the financial support it receives from its outside backers.

These demands, however morally reasonable, systematically run into the geopolitical and economic calculations of the regional powers involved, an obstacle that explains why the world keeps repeating the same mistakes in the face of humanitarian crises that are nonetheless perfectly documented.

The weapons of silence: drones and disinformation

A drone war that kills indiscriminately

Drones have become a central weapon for both factions in the Sudanese conflict, and according to the United Nations human rights agency, more than 1,000 civilians were killed in drone strikes between January and May 2026 alone, a figure that illustrates the scale of violence inflicted on a population that asked for none of this.

This technological escalation makes protecting civilians even harder, as drones can strike distant targets with a precision that, paradoxically, never seems to spare civilian populations despite the technical capabilities that would otherwise allow such harm to be avoided.

Two governments both claiming the entire country

Hemedti established his own government of peace and unity in the areas under his control in 2025, claiming, like General al-Burhan, jurisdiction over all of Sudan, an institutional split that further complicates any prospect of a negotiated resolution to the conflict.

The Security Council has explicitly reiterated its rejection of any parallel governing authority in areas controlled by the RSF, a firm diplomatic position that nonetheless remains, in practice, without concrete effect on the ground where fighting continues.

The Security Council's ignored humanitarian appeal

Specific demands left unanswered

The UN Security Council explicitly demanded that the RSF immediately halt its assault on El-Obeid, also requiring that all parties to the conflict protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law, in line with the commitments made under the Jeddah Declaration signed in May 2023.

The Council also called for all abuses and violations to be investigated and for those responsible to be held accountable, a demand that, despite its legitimacy, has so far produced no genuinely functional justice mechanism for the victims of this war.

Humanitarian access, a matter of life or death

The United Nations has reiterated that all parties must allow and facilitate safe, unhindered humanitarian access, as well as safe passage for civilians seeking to flee combat zones, in accordance with international law, a basic requirement that should nonetheless be a given in any armed conflict.

The Council also urged all United Nations member states to refrain from any outside interference likely to fuel the conflict and instability, an appeal aimed directly at the regional powers suspected of supplying weapons and funding to the belligerents.

The complicit silence of the great regional powers

Outside backers fueling both sides

The Sudanese Armed Forces officially benefit from the support of Egypt, Turkey, Russia, and Iran, a network of alliances that shows just how much this seemingly local Sudanese conflict is actually embedded in a far broader geopolitical competition involving authoritarian powers hostile to Western values.

For their part, the United Arab Emirates categorically deny any involvement in the war or any support given to the RSF, denials that contrast sharply with repeated accusations from human rights organizations internationally recognized for the rigor of their investigations.

A hypocrisy that costs human lives

This complex geopolitical configuration, in which Russia and Iran appear on the side of the Sudanese Armed Forces, is yet another reminder that these authoritarian regimes never hesitate to insert themselves into distant conflicts when their strategic or economic interests are at stake, regardless of the human cost to civilian populations.

Faced with this reality, the West cannot afford to treat Sudan as a secondary crisis, because every conflict in which Russia and Iran extend their influence without firm opposition sets a dangerous precedent for the international order that Western democracies claim to defend.

What the story of El-Fasher should have taught us

The same warning signs, ignored once again

In the weeks before the fall of El-Fasher, the same types of warnings had been issued by the same international organizations, with the same vocabulary of alarm, and yet the city fell, followed by killings that shocked the entire world for a few days before vanishing from the headlines.

This almost mechanical repetition of international warnings, without concrete preventive measures ever being deployed in time, is one of the most serious accusations that can be leveled against the current multilateral system, unable to turn awareness of an imminent danger into decisive action.

El-Obeid as a credibility test for the international community

The current situation in El-Obeid thus represents a crucial credibility test for the entire international community: if the same mistakes are repeated, if the same warnings go without concrete follow-through, it will become impossible to claim the UN system still has any real capacity to prevent mass atrocities.

It is precisely for this reason that every voice, however modest, matters in this battle to keep the world's attention on a city of 500,000 people at risk of suffering the same tragic fate as El-Fasher if nothing changes in the coming weeks.

What the West must demand now

Targeted, immediate sanctions

The West must demand the immediate imposition of targeted sanctions against RSF leaders as well as against their main outside financial backers, notably by publicly clarifying the exact role certain Gulf states play in fueling this devastating conflict.

These sanctions must be accompanied by sustained diplomatic pressure on the United Nations to finally adopt collective measures against the two rival generals and their respective organizations, rather than settling for renewed statements of concern with every new crisis.

Humanitarian engagement matching the urgency

Beyond sanctions, Western democracies must also substantially strengthen their humanitarian support for the 14 million people displaced by this conflict, by guaranteeing adequate funding to the organizations operating on the ground under extremely difficult conditions.

This humanitarian commitment must not be seen as mere charity, but as an essential investment in long-term regional stability, because a collapsed Sudan handed over to authoritarian powers will never serve the West's security interests in this strategic part of Africa.

What I cannot promise you in this letter

The uncertainty that remains about the outcome of this crisis

As I write these lines, I cannot guarantee that the feared RSF offensive against El-Obeid will actually happen, nor that the darkest scenarios described by experts and humanitarian organizations will materialize in the coming weeks.

This uncertainty, very real, does not diminish in any way the seriousness of the warning signs currently observed on the ground, but it obliges me to be careful in my claims rather than giving in to dramatization that would undermine the credibility of this warning.

One thing, however, remains certain

What does remain certain is that the world today has all the information it needs to act preventively, unlike the situation that prevailed before the fall of El-Fasher, where the scale of the danger was perhaps not as clearly documented as it currently is for El-Obeid.

This difference should, logically, translate into a faster and more decisive international response, but the recent history of diplomacy in the face of Sudanese crises unfortunately calls for cautious skepticism about this prospect.

The comparison to Ukraine no one dares to make

Two wars, two radically different levels of attention

It is impossible to write about Sudan without confronting an uncomfortable truth: the war in Ukraine, with its daily Russian bombardment against civilians, receives media coverage and Western diplomatic engagement on a scale nowhere near what the Sudanese conflict receives, despite being just as deadly and just as urgent.

This disparity in attention in no way diminishes the legitimacy of the massive support given to Kyiv against Vladimir Putin's aggression, but it reveals an implicit hierarchy of human suffering based on geographic and strategic proximity to the West, a reality I refuse to justify even as I understand it.

Why the two causes are not mutually exclusive

Defending Ukraine against Russia and demanding concrete action for El-Obeid are not competing priorities but two facets of the same fundamental commitment to protecting civilian populations from armed violence, regardless of who commits it or where it happens on the map.

Western democracies have the diplomatic, financial, and institutional resources needed to support both causes at once, provided they show a political will that, so far, seems unfortunately reserved for conflicts deemed geopolitically important.

What ordinary citizens can still do

Beyond despair, concrete actions exist

Faced with the seemingly insurmountable scale of the Sudanese crisis, it would be easy to give in to despair and conclude that no individual action can have the slightest impact on El-Obeid's fate, but this resignation itself amounts to a form of passive complicity with the general indifference I denounce in this letter.

Financially supporting humanitarian organizations working directly with the 14 million displaced people, calling on local elected officials about the need for targeted sanctions, and simply refusing to let this crisis disappear from public conversation are modest but real actions within everyone's reach.

The cumulative power of public attention

Recent history shows that citizen pressure, when it accumulates and is sustained over time, can genuinely influence the diplomatic priorities of Western governments, even on issues initially considered secondary by traditional power circles.

It is this conviction, fragile as it may be, that justifies the publication of this open letter: not the illusion that a single piece will change the course of events in El-Obeid, but the hope that every additional voice helps keep this crisis in the field of vision of a world too often distracted by its own priorities.

Conclusion: one last chance to act before it's too late

The world still has time, but not for much longer

The situation in El-Obeid has not yet reached the point of no return observed in El-Fasher, which means there still remains, technically, a window of opportunity for diplomatic pressure and targeted sanctions to genuinely deter the RSF from launching its feared offensive against this city of 500,000 people.

This window, however, is closing quickly as RSF reinforcements continue to build up around the city, making each additional day of diplomatic delay more costly in terms of human lives potentially spared or lost.

A final call not to repeat the mistakes of the past

I close this open letter by imploring Western leaders, the United Nations, and the entire international community not to repeat, once again, the tragic mistake that preceded the fall of El-Fasher, because the people of El-Obeid do not deserve to pay, in turn, the price of international indifference.

History will judge harshly anyone who held the information needed to prevent a new tragedy and who chose, nonetheless, to look away.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Who I am and my acknowledged biases

I am Maxime Marquette, columnist-analyst for mad-m.ca, and I hold a firmly pro-Western perspective that believes liberal democracies must actively defend civilian populations threatened by armed groups, wherever they are in the world, including in Sudan.

This bias does not stop me from acknowledging that Western media and diplomatic attention often remains uneven depending on the region of the world, an imbalance I choose here to denounce rather than silently reproduce.

What I don't know and my method

I cannot confirm with certainty whether the RSF offensive against El-Obeid will actually take place, nor predict the exact scale of the humanitarian consequences should it occur, as casualty estimates for the conflict as a whole already vary considerably depending on the source consulted.

My method relies exclusively on recognized journalistic and institutional sources, notably the United Nations and rigorous international media, systematically flagging uncertainties rather than concealing them behind unverified categorical claims.

Sources

Primary sources

Deutsche Welle — Sudan warnings mount over the risk of new mass atrocities — June 25, 2026

UN News — Security Council warns of risk of mass atrocities in El-Obeid — June 20, 2026

Secondary sources

Council on Foreign Relations — Sudan conflict tracker — 2026

Wikipedia — Siege of El-Fasher, timeline and toll — 2026

Al Jazeera — Coverage of international conflicts — 2026

Foreign Policy — Foreign policy analysis — 2026