Sudan Update

 
Washington, DC- We grow increasingly alarmed and outraged by the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) sustained drone campaign against the city of El Obeid, which has targeted its power source, fuel stations, and hospitals. We must raise the alarm that, if left unaddressed, we will witness a repeat of the massacres that have historically occurred with every city captured by the RSF. For nearly three years, the people of Sudan have faced deliberate and ethnically targeted campaigns of extermination, displacement, imposed starvation, and sexual violence at the hands of the RSF. Every day, we must bear witness to the consequences of a genocide being chosen as a council topic by the international community, instead of an actionable cause. The RSF are destroying entire communities with the intent to cleanse Sudan of entire indigenous populations. This has been demonstrated by the scope and nature of their systemic assault: hospitals are bombed, power is cut, dialysis centers are forced to close, fuel is incinerated, and water stations are shut down, all while a city of half a million people must survive with the fears of the RSF rampage. These atrocities are occurring for all the world to see. The people of El Obeid, North Darfur, and Kordofan are living in constant fear, seemingly unknown to the greater world. We must reinforce that every violation of international law in Sudan today is a crime of complicity. The international community has established that a genocide is taking place in Sudan—so why do they remain idle in the face of such an atrocity?

El Obeid: Power Cut, Hospitals Shuttered, Civilians Killed

On June 19th, 2026, the RSF struck El Obeid’s main power transformer, plunging the entire city and its surroundings into a total blackout. Drone strikes persisted for at least five consecutive days, targeting fuel stations and tankers across the city and severing the fuel supply vital to emergency services, civilian transport, and the generators that kept hospitals alive. According to the United Nations and the Sudan Doctors Network, the attacks forced the closure of multiple medical facilities, including a dialysis center — resulting in the deaths of numerous civilians. Subsequently, water stations shut down, leaving more than half a million residents and displaced persons without access to fresh water.

At least 50 civilians were killed in RSF aerial strikes across El Obeid and North Kordofan this past week. On June 26th alone, an RSF drone strike killed one civilian and wounded four others at a fuel station in the heart of the city. The day prior, a separate drone attack on a market fuel station in Kosti, White Nile State, killed at least one civilian and wounded 15 others. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has confirmed that RSF drone strikes killed over 1,000 civilians in just the first five months of 2026. The majority of the attacks were conducted on vital civilian infrastructure, thus blatantly violating international humanitarian law—time and time again. The RSF’s campaigns this past week demonstrate this pattern of genocidal warfare. El Obeid will be the next city to face the devastation imposed by the RSF, a devastation worsened by the United Nations, the United States, and the international community’s inability to act preemptively.

North Darfur: Mass Displacement Continues as the United Nations & United States Confirm Genocide

The wave of violence in El Obeid does not mean that civilian deaths in North Darfur have ceased. Between June 18th and 21st, 253 families were displaced from their homes and the Abu Shouk displacement camp as security and humanitarian conditions worsened. By June 26th, more civilians fled the neighborhoods of Al-Nasr, Al-Daraja Al-Ula, Al-Shorfa, and the Abu Shouk camp. Since the siege, more than 470,000 people have been displaced from El Fasher and its surrounding camps.

Those who have endured displacement since the start of the conflict, including during this past week, have survived drone attacks, starvation, infectious disease, the collapse of every essential service, and the deliberate destruction of any route to safety. They have done so alone, without the international protection promised to victims of genocide; and this suffering will continue so long as such destructive, genocidal parties remain free from international sanctions and immune to the delivery of justice.

Famine Remains Rampant: 825,000 Children Face Death While Humanitarian Access Is Hunted and Destroyed

Sudanese children die with every passing day as the demand for humanitarian assistance remains unmet, and while the RSF continues to destroy what little resources are provided. The RSF has conjured and enforced a strategy of targeting food convoys, destroying fuel supplies, closing hospitals, and cutting off the humanitarian sector as a means of waging genocide on civilians. Nearly 19.5 million people — two in every five Sudanese citizens — currently face acute food insecurity. Since the beginning of this year alone, more than 825,000 children have been at risk of death from severe acute malnutrition. In North Darfur, the ‘Global Acute Malnutrition’ rate among children under five has reached 52.9 percent. To contextualize, half of the children in North Darfur—which is the size of the U.S. state of Arizona—are not being fed adequately. Furthermore, just days before this reporting period, an RSF attack on a joint WFP and UNICEF humanitarian convoy of 15 trucks in Al Koma, North Darfur, killed five humanitarian staff members, destroyed four trucks containing critical supplies, and damaged five more. As of April this year, only 20 percent of Sudan’s proposed Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan had been funded by the international community. The children suffering from starvation in Darfur and Kordofan are not dying because the world does not know; they are dying because the world has not acted. The ‘lack of evidence’ does not suffice as an excuse any longer—the United Nations is choosing not to fulfill its ethical and moral duties mandated by the Charter, and children are dying because of it.

The Security Council Meets on June 26th — Speakers Warn of “Another El Fasher,” Yet Binding Action Remains Deferred

The United Nations Security Council is frustratingly aware of the crisis unfolding in Sudan but has yet to act on the very atrocities it speaks of. On June 26th, 2026, the United Nations Security Council convened to hear briefings on the escalating situation in Sudan. Regrettably, the discussion remained broad and ambiguous. The Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, warned that “an escalation in El Obeid would place hundreds of thousands of civilians at immediate risk of large-scale violence” and “the window to avert a wider escalation in El Obeid is rapidly narrowing.” DiCarlo stated the growing use of drones is making the war “more unpredictable, more geographically dispersed and more lethal for civilians,” and that the RSF “could not sustain this pace of fighting without the sophisticated weaponry they obtain through external support.” She called on the Security Council, explicitly demanding they do more for the civilians in Sudan. DWAG acknowledges and echoes DiCarlo’s statement.

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hannan Sulieman confirmed that Sudan “remains the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.” An estimated 500,000 civilians are at immediate risk as the RSF continues its capture of El Obeid. Sulieman recalled that a similar warning was sounded in El Fasher in 2025 — and what followed was the conduct of 1,500 violations—sexual and otherwise—against children in El Fasher alone. Since the war began, the United Nations has verified more than 5,700 violations against children across Sudan. Similarly, nearly 80 percent of reported child casualties in the first four months of 2026 were linked to drone strikes, demonstrating the devastating reality of childhood in Sudan. Such declarations should be enough to demand action, but the Security Council remains idle in imposing binding action.

Various council members from across the chamber and the world echoed these warnings. The United Kingdom’s representative stated that El Obeid stands “on the precipice of an atrocity that would deepen the wounds inflicted on Sudan in El Fasher.” Denmark’s representative warned that “El Obeid must not become another El Fasher” and underscored the Security Council’s responsibility to act preemptively. Similarly, Latvia stated, “the alarms in and around El Obeid are loud and clear — we have seen this pattern before.” Colombia’s representative, speaking as Council President, stated plainly: “We cannot be ambiguous or sit idly by and delay our response.” Most critically, the United States announced a second round of sanctions on Sudan for chemical weapons use and sanctioned eight individuals and entities for facilitating shadow weapons networks.

DWAG echoes every one of these calls, but we do so with the demand to fulfill them. We are grateful that the Security Council members are speaking about what is unfolding in Sudan, but without enforcement, security is nothing but a talking point. This is the third Security Council statement on Sudan in 2026. The International Criminal Court has already warned of an ongoing pattern of large-scale crimes against humanity across Darfur. And yet, as of June 26th, 2026, the Security Council has passed no binding resolution with enforcement mechanisms. No international protection forces have been deployed. No nationwide arms embargo has been enacted. The RSF continues to receive weaponry from external actors. And the “window” DiCarlo described is closing. We speak to the Council: warnings do not save lives. Action does.

 
At Darfur Women Action Group, we refuse to remain silent about the genocide unfolding in Darfur and Kordofan. We are dismayed and agonized by international institutions’ constant failure and our leaders’ indifference to the people of Sudan. On June 20th, 2026, following days of RSF bombardment of El Obeid, the UN Security Council issued a press statement expressing “concern” over the “imminent risk of mass atrocities.” This is not protection. This is not accountability. After nearly three years of genocide, the Security Council has issued not a binding resolution with enforcement mechanisms, but a press statement. Hospitals are shut down, patients die without treatment, civilians are killed in daily drone strikes, and a city of half a million is forced to brace for what comes next. We must not allow world leaders to normalize genocide or reduce Sudan’s agony to diplomatic negotiations and “truce frameworks” that deepen the suffering and enable perpetrators.

For nearly three years, Sudan’s civilians — especially the people of Darfur and Kordofan — have endured what no community should ever face: mass slaughter, sexual violence used to destroy entire communities, starvation used as policy, and forced displacement at a scale the world has not seen in decades. Every day, survivors testify and plead for the protection of their communities and families. Now we are forced to question what it will take for the world to act.

We call on the United Nations Security Council, the African Union, the United States, the European Union, IGAD, and the greater international community to support our calls to action:

• Enforce an Immediate and Sustained Ceasefire with Civilian Protection Guarantees, including an immediate halt to all RSF aerial bombardment, drone strikes, and siege tactics, and mandate the withdrawal of RSF forces from civilian zonesin El Obeid, North Darfur, and throughout Kordofan.
• Open Safe Humanitarian Corridors by Land and Air with guaranteed and unobstructed access for food, medical aid, fuel, and emergency response teams, including cross-border corridors through Chad, free from RSF interference, attack, or blockade.
• Deploy International Protection Forces under Chapter VII mandates to safeguard civilians, displacement camps, hospitals, dialysis centers, and aid workers in El Obeid, North Darfur, and all besieged and at-risk communities.
• Expand the Arms Embargo to All of Sudan by cutting the weapons pipeline feeding genocide, including enforcement against international suppliers and intermediaries known to be arming the RSF.
• Support and fully resource the UN Fact-Finding Mission and the ICC to document atrocities, secure evidence of mass graves, and prosecute crimes of genocide, sexual violence, ethnic targeting, and mass starvation as weapons of war.
• Impose targeted sanctions, travel bans, and international criminal designation, including scrutiny of states and private entities supplying arms or financing the RSF’s genocidal campaign.
• Designate the RSF as a global terrorist organization and build a coordinated international response to delegitimize, isolate, and dismantle its command structure.
• Fully fund Sudan’s 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan — currently at just 20 percent — as a matter of urgent legal and moral obligation to the children and civilians dying of imposed starvation.

We implore all of you to add your voice and force global action to stop genocide, protect survivors, and demand accountability through our One Million Voices for Sudan Campaign. We can speak with one voice and make a difference — end the suffering, save lives, and hold the perpetrators accountable. Together, we defend human dignity, demand protection, and affirm that the lives of Sudanese citizens– and most critically children– are not expendable.