Critical Threat to El-Obeid as RSF redeploys east after El-Fasher’s fall, analysts warn

El-Obeid, Sudan — A mortal danger threatens as Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces pack their bags and head east following al-Fashir’s fall, analysts say. The redeployment is concentrating fighters and drones in Kordofan, raising the specter of an urban assault and large-scale displacement. Nov. 17, 2025.

Fresh deployments and drone strikes suggest the push is from both sides, focusing on Kordofan, with army reinforcements reported by witnesses and RSF forces moving east of the city, Reuters said. “Every area of Kordofan, Khartoum, and Port Sudan will be targeted … we shall hit anywhere the army is,” said a leader of RSF.

The shift comes after RSF announced on October 26 that it seized the army headquarters in al-Fashir — a move aimed at strengthening its control over Darfur, Reuters reported.

A day later, analysts cautioned that the takeover could escalate, potentially dividing Sudan and releasing RSF personnel for operations beyond Darfur. “We’ve yet to see any indication that the leadership of the RSF is satisfied with being present in just western Sudan,’’ Alan Boswell, Horn of Africa director at the International Crisis Group, said according to Reuters.

Witnesses later reported street-to-street killings, drone strikes, and detentions in the city after it fell, raising fears about what a struggle for El-Obeid could look like, Reuters said.

The U.N. Human Rights Council has voted to establish a fact-finding mission into alleged mass killings in al-Fashir. U.N. rights chief Volker Türk slammed “all too much pretence and performance, and all too little of that entering into the fight against naked cruelty,” Reuters reported.

The vulnerability of El-Obeid is nothing new, according to local residents. In 2019, security forces shot schoolchildren dead during protests over shortages in the city, an episode that still influences local fears, according to Reuters.

El-Obeid was already characterized as being under siege early in the war, with essentials cut off and looting rampant, Reuters reported in 2023. That history has fueled fears that new fighting would block the flow of aid through Kordofan.

Mass killings have already occurred this year in North Kordofan. Around Bara, nearly 300 villagers were killed in July, activists said. Those attacks drove families toward El-Obeid or out of the state entirely.

Analysts, however, say that El-Obeid is at the crossroads of supply lines to central and eastern Sudan, making it a vital point for control. Reuters coverage has also detailed RSF encirclements in nearby towns, and famine conditions in South Kordofan, raising the danger that any new offensive would prompt a fresh exodus.

What to watch next: If reinforcements come, if cease-fire talks pick up, and if the RSF steps up its attacks by drones toward El-Obeid. In the days to come, the civilian population in Kordofan may become the new front line of the war.