UN: women in besieged al-Obeid face drones by day, rape by night

Where things stand

The siege of al-Obeid, the capital of Sudan's North Kordofan state, is now framed by the UN as a specifically gendered emergency, even as the military picture around the city shifts. UN Women has said that women and girls in al-Obeid face drone attacks when they go out to fetch water during the day and harassment, rape and other sexual violence when they go out after dark, describing a place where there is no safe time of day to collect water. Its account puts water collection itself at the centre of the risk: the danger of daytime strikes has pushed the task into the night, where the threat becomes sexual violence rather than aerial attack. That statement builds on an earlier warning from the UN human rights chief, who described an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in al-Obeid amid intensified fighting between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. UN Women puts the siege at roughly 18 months and draws an explicit comparison with al-Fashir in North Darfur a year earlier, positioning al-Obeid as a repetition of a pattern the UN has already documented. Against that account, the Sudanese army has captured a town in Kordofan close to al-Obeid, according to The National, an advance reported to ease pressure on the encircled city. It is not established in the available material whether that gain has translated into any change in conditions inside al-Obeid itself, or whether the daily calculus described by UN Women — drones by day, assault by night — has been altered for the women who have to leave home for water. The UN account rests on the agency's own reporting, and independent verification of conditions inside the city remains absent.

Al-Obeid is the capital of North Kordofan state in central Sudan and a strategic hub on the routes linking Khartoum to the country's west. It has been encircled for around 18 months, according to UN Women, as Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces fight for control of the region. Residents under siege depend on trips outside their homes for basic needs such as water, which the UN now describes as the principal point of exposure to both aerial attack and sexual violence. The UN human rights chief warned earlier this month of a humanitarian catastrophe in the city as fighting intensified. UN Women compares the situation to that of al-Fashir in North Darfur a year earlier, another besieged state capital in the same conflict.