Sudan civil war: Sexual violence increasingly used as ‘weapon of war’, UN says

El-Obeid, where about 200,000 are taking refuge after fleeing other areas hit by violence, has now become one of the main front lines, with reports that the RSF has been carrying out drone strikes in the city ahead of a possible ground assault.

“As displaced people we feel we have come here only to die. We are afraid,” a woman in the city told BBC Arabic’s Sudan Lifeline programme.

“We arrived here and this has become our fate. We cannot eat. We cannot drink. Where can we go? Where do we go from here?”

Another woman said she was “extremely afraid of drones”.

“We are terrified and feel psychologically and physically insecure,” she added.

El-Obeid is of strategic significance, sitting between RSF-controlled areas in the west and army-controlled areas in the east.

It is in the oil-rich Kordofan region, and analysts say whoever controls the region effectively controls Sudan’s oil supply, as well as a large chunk of the country.

The UK and its European allies urged the international community to act to prevent violence on a scale similar to that seen when the RSF captured the city of el-Fasher in the northern Darfur region.

“Last year, the world witnessed with horror the atrocities in el-Fasher – crimes that are assessed to bear the ‘hallmarks of genocide’. We must not allow such failures to be repeated,” they said in their joint statement.

More than 6,000 people were killed in just three days when the RSF seized el-Fasher, according to a UN report released in February.