A 27-year-old university student, Sarah (not her real name), was injured in a drone strike at a crowded fuel station in el-Obeid. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
She said the station lit up before everything went dark. "In front of us there were injured people, blood, burnt cars, and smashed cars," Sarah said. She sustained shrapnel injuries to her leg and hand because she was outside the car when the second missile struck.
Currently under army control, el-Obeid – the capital of North Kordofan state with a population of around 500,000 – has one of the largest military bases in central Sudan. But the army has been unable to repel the drone strikes, with 27 hitting the city in June, the highest monthly total since the conflict began, according to violence monitoring group Acled.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said at least 45 people were killed and 41 injured in 15 drone strikes between 6 and 28 June. He added that the city has been under siege-like conditions for 18 months, with summary executions, abductions, torture and sexual violence taking place along routes used by people fleeing the conflict. "The signs from el-Obeid are clear and unmistakable: Another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan," Turk said in Geneva.
Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, said el-Obeid is strategically significant, lying between the RSF-controlled west and the army-held east. "If you control el-Obeid, you control the road to the capital, Khartoum and Omdurman, and so the army has to defend el-Obeid," he said.
A doctor at a hospital in the city said they were struggling to cope with the influx of casualties. "We receive injured patients after almost every drone attack. Most of the injuries involve limbs while some patients suffer from head injuries," she said. One of the most distressing cases was a seven-month-old baby. "Her hand had to be amputated because of the severity of the injury, but sadly she did not survive. The situation is frightening. You leave your house as if you will never return. We are really suffering from the drones – no-one knows how and when they will die," the doctor said, trying to hold back tears.
Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard warned that el-Obeid could face violence on a scale similar to that seen in el-Fasher when the RSF captured it after an 18-month siege. "What happened in el-Fasher is not an oddity. It is not a moment of madness. It is a playbook," she said. The UN said early last year that the conflict in el-Fasher bore the "hallmarks of genocide," with more than 6,000 people killed in three days, with mostly Arab RSF fighters accused of slaughtering non-Arab groups. The RSF has repeatedly denied these accusations. In response to warnings of an impending massacre in el-Obeid, the RSF said it would "work diligently" to ensure the full protection of residents and was operating in full compliance with international law.
However, Raymond said el-Obeid does not currently display the same ethnic dynamics that characterised the violence in el-Fasher. "Right now, we don't see any indication of a large-scale plan by RSF to attack," he said. Acled's Nohad Eltayeb said the RSF had effectively encircled the city from the north, west and south, but the army had reinforced its positions with allied militias to "continue to hold a vital supply corridor connecting the city with eastern territories." "While it is very likely that the RSF will attack the city, this logistical lifeline and reinforcements render a complete RSF takeover improbable," she said in a report released on 30 June.
Sarah said the drone strikes have mainly targeted fuel stations or fuel tankers, with other residents saying that water and sewage trucks, apparently mistaken for fuel tankers, have also been hit. Raymond said satellite imagery showed that at least eight fuel stations had suffered damage consistent with bombardment between late May and late June.