Will Sudan’s RSF turn strategic city of el-Obeid into another el-Fasher?

On the morning of October 25, as Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces stormed the town of Bara in North Kordofan state, Sadiq Ahmed thought about his two daughters and what would happen to them if he couldn’t protect them.

RSF fighters began raiding homes, looking for loot, as well as women and girls, said Sadiq.

According to the United Nations and Human Rights Watch, the RSF routinely wields rape as a weapon of war and kidnaps women and girls to use as sex slaves.

When fighters came to Sadiq’s house, he gave them everything he owned: money, phones and gold. But he refused to give up his daughters or nieces.

“It was a red line for me. I was prepared to die to [protect my daughters],” Sadiq, 59, told media.

Sadiq was able to convince the RSF fighters – who are fighting the regular army known as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – to allow his family and his brother’s family to flee town.

They were among nearly 39,000 people uprooted from the vast Kordofan region due to a sharp uptick in violence between October 26 and November 9, according to the United Nations.

However, not everyone was so lucky. The Sudan’s Doctor’s Network said that at least 38 civilians were killed during the RSF’s capture of Bara, while other local monitors told media that men of fighting age were often accused of “sympathising” with the army and killed.

The next epicentre of conflict

Many of those displaced from Bara ended up with relatives or in open-air camps in North Kordofan’s capital, el-Obeid, a city about 59 kilometres (36 miles) east.

El-Obeid is controlled by the SAF, which has been at war with the RSF since April 2023.

The city is home to the SAF’s strategic airbase and operates as an important buffer to protect Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, according to analysts.

El-Obeid has also absorbed tens of thousands of displaced people seeking relative safety from the RSF, yet the city may not be safe for long.

The RSF is redeploying thousands of fighters to North Kordofan after capturing North Darfur’s capital el-Fasher last month, according to a leaked RSF document obtained by Darfur24, a local news outlet following developments in the region.

The nomadic “Arab” fighters that mostly make up the RSF’s ranks besieged el-Fasher for more than 500 days before carrying out a campaign of violence against sedentary “non-Arab” tribes, in what many observers have termed a genocide.

Relief workers, analysts and local monitors fear the RSF could subject civilians in el-Obeid to a similar fate.

“My forecast has always been that el-Obeid will be under [RSF] siege by Thanksgiving,” said Nathaniel Raymond, the executive director of the Yale Humanitarian Lab that provides satellite imagery analysis of the war in Sudan, referring to the holiday in the United States that falls on November 27 this year.

Raymond added that the RSF appears to be trying to first capture the town of Babanusa in West Kordofan, which it is currently besieging. That way, it can then use the town to support an all-out assault on el-Obeid.

The RSF will likely overburden SAF in Babanusa by launching its wide arsenal of drones from the airport in el-Fasher, Raymond explained.

“Babanusa is really the last line of defence [for the SAF] against the coming onslaught against el-Obeid,” he told media.

Looming battle

As the battlefield shifts to Kordofan, the SAF is reportedly stepping up recruitment and deploying thousands of newly recruited civilians turned fighters – known as the mobilised or “mustanfereen” – to el-Obeid.

SAF recently opened up a training camp in North Kordofan to recruit young men eager to fight against the RSF after the fall of el-Fasher, according to Mohamed el-Fatih, a Sudanese journalist and analyst covering developments across the country.

Fighters from SAF-aligned armed groups – known as the Joint Forces, which were instrumental in holding off the RSF in el-Fasher for a year and a half – are also present in el-Obeid, according to a local relief worker who requested anonymity due to the tense security environment.

He said that most civilians don’t leave their homes or displacement camps after sundown out of fear of being robbed by armed men on the street.

Other civilians are reportedly fleeing to neighbouring White Nile state, which connects to the only road out of el-Fasher, according to local monitors.

Hafiz Mohamed, the director of local human rights organisation Justice Africa, told media that more people are trying to get out before the RSF besieges the city.

“Some people are leaving … because they don’t have faith that el-Obeid won’t eventually fall. They don’t have confidence in the army,” he said.

Mohammed Ibrahim, a civil servant with the SAF-backed Port Sudan government who works for the economic ministry in el-Obeid, confirmed that civilians were very scared of an RSF attack after the group took el-Fasher.

Many people, he noted, were considering fleeing further north after a series of incriminating videos showed RSF fighters perpetrating mass killings and other atrocities in North Darfur.

“The SAF has sent reinforcements all around the city … and people are calmer now … everyone is ready to confront the RSF if they attack,” he said.

Outgunned and outmanned?

Despite the SAF’s recruitment drive to defend el-Obeid, it still lacks the arsenal and manpower to fortify el-Obeid, according to Raymond, the researcher from Yale.

He said the SAF typically relies on close air cover, either from warplanes or helicopters, to assist ground infantry. However, over the past year, the RSF has acquired man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADS), which are a significant threat to low-flying aircraft.

The RSF has had MANPADS since at least 2024, and they have proven instrumental in combating SAF’s airpower.

“SAF has one play right now and that’s to curl up and prepare for siege mode … that’s because they no longer have [air supremacy], which was their biggest advantage,” Raymond told media.

Regional states backing the SAF, such as Turkiye and Egypt, could step up arms shipments to try and level the playing field.

The former is reported to have sold the SAF its highly regarded Bayraktar drones throughout the war – weapons that helped it recapture Gezira State and the capital Khartoum from the RSF earlier this year.

In addition, the SAF has recently requested access to Egypt’s air-defence systems to shoot down RSF drones.

However, Egypt is concerned about getting directly involved in the war, according to an Africa Intelligence report, which specialises in obtaining geopolitical and business intelligence.

Their analysis was based on open-source intelligence that tracked Egyptian and Turkish cargo flights to Port Sudan, as well as on defence sources, which claim to have intimate knowledge of the military planning of both countries.

Yet, even if the SAF acquires new upgraded weaponry from its allies, it still may not be enough to hold on to el-Obeid, said Raymond.

“These weapons are not a panacea,” he told media.

“The SAF still doesn’t have enough men bearing arms to control the vast area. They are running out of men,” he said.