{"id":80774,"date":"2025-12-19T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/sudan-war-kordofans-el-obeid-one-or-two-steps-away-from-being-attacked\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T12:00:00","slug":"sudan-war-kordofans-el-obeid-one-or-two-steps-away-from-being-attacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=80774","title":{"rendered":"Sudan war: Kordofan\u2019s El-Obeid \u2018one or two steps\u2019 away from being attacked"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cPeople in Sudan are not moving by choice, they are running just to find safety,\u201d said\u00a0Mohamed Refaat, IOM Chief of Mission in Sudan.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking from Port Sudan to journalists in Geneva, he urged\u00a0all Member States and \u201ceveryone who can provide support\u201d for Sudan\u2019s people, to ensure their protection.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Heavy shelling alert<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Latest reports from the wartorn country indicate that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) along with allies in the Sudan People\u2019s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) shelled residential buildings in Dilling, South Kordofan in the last 48 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The RSF have been at war with the Sudanese army since April 2023 following a breakdown in transition to civilian rule. On 26 October, the paramilitary force overran El Fasher &#8211; the regional capital of North Darfur \u2013 after a 500-day siege, prompting further mass displacement. Deep concerns persist for those believed to still be trapped inside the city who had to eat peanut shells and animal feed to survive the ordeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><strong>\u2018People are scared\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cThose displacements from Kordofan are not happening sporadically, they are happening because people are scared,\u201d IOM\u2019s Mr. Refaat said. He noted that people were now fleeing from Babanusa, Kadugli and El-Obeid.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Highlighting deep concerns for vulnerable individuals on the move, the veteran humanitarian official noted that \u201conly women and children\u201d are arriving in White Nile and Gedaref to the east.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Deep insecurity and violence persist across Sudan, increasing protection risks for civilians and hampering safe humanitarian access.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There are growing concerns over the rapidly deteriorating situation in Kadugli, the capital city of South Kordofan state where\u00a0six peacekeepers from Bangladesh were killed in drone attacks\u00a0last Saturday. The UN blue helmets were at a logistics\u00a0base in the city, deployed\u00a0with the UN force in Abyei, the disputed region on the border with South Sudan.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Hundreds of thousands at risk<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cIn the town of Kadugli, we estimate that there are around 90,000 to 100,000 people in this area who will be displaced if something happened if the fighting continued, if they get access to leaving the city,\u201d Mr. Refaat said. He added that El-Obeid \u2013 the capital of North Kordofan \u2013 appeared to be just \u201cone or two steps from being the next city under attack\u2026we estimate more than half a million are already going to be impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Returning to the crisis in El Fasher, the IOM official noted that the UN agency\u2019s displacement tracking matrix had recorded more than 109,000 people who had managed to flee the city and its surrounding villages since it fell in late October to the RSF.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany of them are still stuck in the neighbouring villages not able to move further because of logistics [and] security issues\u201d he said, fuelling concerns for those trying to survive when the essentials for survival have been\u00a0\u201ccompletely obliterated\u201d, UN aid teams warned one week ago.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about the impact of severe funding cuts for aid work in the UN and beyond, the IOM chief of mission explained that the agency had lost\u00a0$83 million worth of resources this year alone. This has forced aid teams to reduce its footprint \u201cmassively\u201d, Mr. Refaat explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of those cuts, we have to choose which lives we can save and which support we have to stop. So, we would go crossing places where we know that people are absolutely in dire need, but we will leave them and not be able to help them because we have to prioritize those who are absolutely dying.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/feed\/view\/en\/story\/2025\/12\/1166633\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cPeople in Sudan are not moving by choice, they are running just to find safety,\u201d said\u00a0Mohamed&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[2498,8417,8416,2185,1028,392],"class_list":["post-80774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","tag-attacked","tag-elobeid","tag-kordofans","tag-steps","tag-sudan","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.0 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - 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