Drones are buzzing over El Obeid, and they aren't spy planes. They are cheap, lethal, and hunting for anything that keeps the city alive. Right now, Sudan’s El Obeid faces intensifying RSF drone attacks that have turned daily life into a lottery of survival. This isn't just another distant skirmish. It's a calculated strangulation of a city holding over half a million souls.
If you want to understand where the war in Sudan is heading, look at the capital of North Kordofan state. Ground offensives have bled both sides dry of infantry over the last three years. So, the strategy changed. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are leaning heavily into unmanned tech to terrorize civilians and break the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) stronghold.
The strategy works through sheer terror.
The Tech Warfare Suffocating North Kordofan
Drones have officially become the leading cause of civilian deaths in Sudan this year. UN officials estimate that these remote-controlled killers took over 1,000 civilian lives in the first five months of 2026 alone. In El Obeid, the frequency of these strikes is breaking records. Local agencies logged at least 27 distinct drone strikes throughout June, killing dozens and wounding hundreds more.
The targets aren't hidden military bunkers. The RSF is hitting the exact infrastructure required to sustain human life. They hit fuel stations. They strike busy marketplaces. They bomb water treatment centers. They even hit schools where children try to find a shred of ordinary life amidst chaos.
When a drone hits a fuel station, the local economy drops dead. A single liter of fuel in El Obeid now costs more than an average schoolteacher's entire monthly salary. Think about that for a second. If you can't afford gas, you can't transport food. If you can't transport food, prices rocket into the stratosphere.
What Happens When the Power Dies
The Al-Obeid power station, the city’s main electricity hub, took a direct hit recently. That single strike triggered a massive domino effect.
- Hospitals went dark: ICUs and premature infant incubators rely on erratic generators.
- Water pumps stopped running: The city's water infrastructure requires electricity to move clean water.
- Long queues formed: Families now stand for agonizing hours under a scorching sun to fetch unsafe water from manual wells.
Why El Obeid is the Ultimate Strategic Prize
The RSF isn't wasting drones on El Obeid just out of spite. The geography tells the whole story. The city sits exactly 500 kilometers from Khartoum. It represents the gateway to western Sudan.
If the RSF can completely capture El Obeid, they effectively lock down the entirety of western Sudan under their banner. They tried to take it early on when the war broke out in April 2023. The SAF managed to push them back out to the edges after fierce airport battles. Since then, the city has endured a choking encirclement. Now, the RSF controls almost every single exit route out of town except for the path leading east.
“In El Obeid, families are starving while dodging indiscriminate attacks just to stay alive,” notes Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “The world has been warned about this crisis and let it happen anyway.”
The nightmare here mirrors the fall of El Fasher in North Darfur late last year, where thousands of civilians were massacred after an 18-month blockade. People in El Obeid fear a repeat. Many residents inside the city are actually refugees who already fled the horrors of El Fasher. They ran hundreds of miles to escape the atrocities, only to find the exact same nightmare flying directly over their heads.
No Easy Way Out
Leaving isn't as simple as packing a bag and driving away. The RSF has set up checkpoints and deployed drones along the primary exit routes. Human rights monitors have documented a grim pattern of summary executions, abductions, and sexual violence targeting civilians who try to flee through these corridors.
Then there is the financial barrier. The astronomical price of black-market fuel means bus fares out of North Kordofan are completely out of reach for regular people. Families are literally selling every single possession they own—furniture, jewelry, clothes—just to buy a ticket out on a vehicle that might get struck by a drone anyway. Just last week, a humanitarian aid convoy trying to bring supplies into the city was struck from the air. When even the UN marked vehicles aren't safe, nobody is.
Local volunteers and humanitarian responders are forced to deliver food and medical supplies exclusively at night. In El Obeid, the daylight has simply become too dangerous.
To help civilians survive this crisis, direct action must bypass blocked roads. Donating to international organizations with active cash-transfer systems in North Kordofan, like the Norwegian Refugee Council, allows residents to receive digital funds directly to purchase food from local traders who still manage to bring goods in through the eastern corridor. Public advocacy demanding a limit on UN Security Council vetoes regarding mass atrocities is also vital to break the diplomatic gridlock that keeps aid blocked from reaching the Kordofan region.
