NEWS
Sudan: the UN warns that an offensive on El-Obeid risks new international crimes
June 2026
The fact
On 18 June 2026 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned that an imminent offensive by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, risks fresh grave international crimes. The city, under siege-like conditions for more than 18 months, has been hit by ten consecutive days of drone strikes — on fuel depots, water and power stations — that have killed dozens of civilians; some 500,000 people, including over 100,000 displaced, are at risk. Türk invoked a direct precedent: “We have seen this playbook before… we cannot allow a repeat of the preventable atrocities we documented in El-Fasher and Zamzam.” In El-Fasher — the army's (SAF) last stronghold in Darfur, which fell to the RSF on 26 October 2025 after an 18-month siege that had brought famine — the UN Fact-Finding Mission concluded, on 19 February 2026, that the RSF campaign against the non-Arab Zaghawa and Fur communities bears the hallmarks of genocide. On 20 June 2026 the Security Council demanded that the RSF halt the assault. The RSF denies the accusations and proclaims itself a legitimate government; Sudan remains torn by the war between the SAF and the RSF that erupted in April 2023, with nearly 14 million displaced.
Legal commentary
The warning rests on the duty to prevent: the Genocide Convention binds States not only to punish but to prevent, and Türk recalled that States with influence have a duty to exercise it now. The criminal framework for Darfur has long existed: the International Criminal Court has had jurisdiction since the 2005 Security Council referral (res. 1593); the arrest warrants for former president al-Bashir date to 2009-2010 and remain unexecuted; and only on 6 October 2025 came the first Darfur conviction, that of former Janjaweed leader Ali Kosheib, for crimes committed in 2003-04. To these are added the war crimes documented by the UN Mission — starvation used as a weapon, attacks on hospitals and civilians (Fourth Geneva Convention, Rome Statute). On “genocide” the distinction must be kept: it is a finding of the UN Fact-Finding Mission and a determination by the United States government (January 2025), not a court judgment; the case Sudan had considered bringing against the Emirates before the International Court of Justice was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.
Implications
Here the law shows its limit when it is not applied. El-Fasher fell under the most intense international documentation — satellite reports, Security Council sessions, a finding of genocide — and yet, as analysts observe, the warnings carried normative weight without operational consequence: the very inquiry that found genocide produced sanctions against three RSF commanders and no cessation of hostilities. Now the playbook repeats at El-Obeid. Coherence requires naming everyone: the RSF, accused of genocide, massacres, rape and siege-starvation; but also the SAF, which launches airstrikes on civilian markets, has been sanctioned for using chemical weapons, and obstructs aid; and the external enablers — the United Arab Emirates, accused of arming the RSF (which it denies), Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran behind the SAF, and Russia, which in November 2024 vetoed a UN resolution on humanitarian access. It is the world's largest humanitarian and displacement crisis, and among the least watched. The law to prevent exists; the will to apply it is missing. The law applies to everyone, or it applies to no one.
Sources: Al Jazeera · UN News · OHCHR · HRW