Whenever residents of the besieged city of el-Obeid look up at the sky, it is filled with drones — sometimes as many as 40 at a time.The hum of the unmanned aircraft, which have been conducting deadly strikes on the city for months, has become the soundtrack to their days.And the drones are indiscriminate."You might get hit and killed by a drone while you're asleep at home, or while on the way to school.
You could also get hit by a drone in the market," says one 25-year-old resident.The local aid worker doesn't want to be named because of the risk to her safety, but she says they even hit funerals.Her uncle was killed in a drone strike while going to bury his neighbor — who'd been killed in a drone strike.
Sudan has been mired in a brutal civil between government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than three years.The war has caused the world's largest humanitarian crisis and displaced millions of people.El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, sits along a strategic corridor in central Sudan, south of the capital, Khartoum, and on the route to the country's western Darfur region.
Its location has made it a critical battleground in the war.According to data from the International NGO Safety Organisation, North Kordofan has recorded the highest number of drone attacks in Sudan in 2026.Drones have been used by both sides to the conflict.United Nations experts are now warning of a new risk of large-scale atrocities in el-Obeid, which they say could see a repeat of what happened in the Darfur city of el-Fasher last year, when the RSF slaughtered some 6,000 civilians.
U.N.investigators later declared those crimes bore "the hallmarks of genocide."Volker Türk, the U.N.
high commissioner for human rights, has stressed the need for urgent action."This is not a drill.It is a red alert that needs to land on the desks of heads of state and government around the world," he said last month.
"Their phones should be running hot in the c...