Sudan's War: Why Two Cities Were Hit at the Same Time
On August 12, 2026, a paramilitary group in Sudan called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked two places at once. It sent drones — unmanned aircraft used as weapons — against the city of El Obeid, killing civilians, and also stepped up drone and ground attacks on Sudan's capital city, Khartoum, according to witnesses who spoke to Reuters. Sudan's army said it shot down some of the drones over El Obeid, as Al Jazeera reported. The attacks add to a war that has forced millions of people from their homes and drawn repeated warnings from human rights groups.
The assault on El Obeid follows weeks of pressure on the city. By August 10, 2026, Sudan's military had pushed back a series of RSF attacks in western Sudan, according to Al Jazeera. That reporting suggested the army, called the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), may be gaining ground in the west. But the RSF's August 12 strikes on El Obeid and Khartoum show that the group still has plenty of fight left. Its ability to run coordinated drone and ground attacks across two areas far apart from each other points to a reach that recent losses have not weakened.
A City Under Siege
El Obeid is the capital of North Kordofan state. It has been surrounded by the RSF for weeks, with hundreds of thousands of civilians hit by repeated drone strikes and running low on water as of August 7, 2026, NPR reported. The conditions have drawn comparisons to El Fasher, a city where the RSF was blamed for atrocities the previous year. In early July 2026, the UN warned of a "catastrophe" unfolding in El Obeid, citing El Fasher as a warning sign, Al Jazeera reported. On July 3, 2026, the UN's top human rights official, Volker Türk, said another human rights catastrophe was unfolding around the city, according to Reuters.
The path from UN warning to sustained attack is grim but not surprising. The RSF's tactics — cutting off water, using drones against civilian areas, and keeping the city surrounded — match the pattern seen in El Fasher. The difference is scale and attention. El Obeid sits in North Kordofan, a region that links western Sudan to the center of the country, making it important both for the people trapped there and for the wider war.
The Broader War
Sudan's civil war started as a power struggle between two generals. The SAF is led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The RSF is led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. The fighting has reached a point where both sides gain and lose territory from week to week. The SAF's reported success in pushing back the RSF in western Sudan by August 10 suggested the army might be turning a corner, as Al Jazeera noted. The RSF's August 12 attacks on both El Obeid and the capital make it harder to say the army is winning.
The simultaneous strikes on Khartoum and El Obeid matter beyond the death toll. They show the RSF can keep pressure on the capital while also maintaining its siege of a major city hundreds of kilometers away. This kind of two-front attack makes it harder for the army to gather its forces in one place, and it raises questions about whether the army's recent gains in the west can hold while the RSF stays active elsewhere.
What Comes Next
Several things remain unresolved after the August 12 escalation. The army's success in shooting down drones over El Obeid suggests some ability to defend against them, but how long that can last is unclear. The humanitarian situation in El Obeid, already bad in early August, will not improve under continued bombing and water shortages. UN warnings from July have not led to action on the ground to protect civilians, and that gap between words and protection has been a constant feature of this war.
The broader picture is that the RSF's decision to strike both El Obeid and Khartoum on August 12 signals it does not see itself as losing, despite the army's reported gains in the west. Whether this reflects real strength or a risky move to pull army forces away from western Sudan is not yet clear from available reporting. What is clear is that the war keeps spreading to new areas, and the people caught between the two forces face conditions that the UN's human rights chief described using language saved for the worst emergencies.
