标签： Africa

Sudan’s three-year civil war between the national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has pushed the strategic central city of el-Obeid to the brink of disaster, as a relentless surge of drone strikes has left hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in siege-like conditions, facing mounting death, injury, and collapsing basic services. The conflict, which began in April 2023, has turned el-Obeid, the 500,000-person capital of North Kordofan state and home to one of Sudan’s largest central military bases, into the latest deadly flashpoint. For 18 months, the city has endured growing encirclement by RSF forces, and recent months have seen a dramatic spike in aerial attacks that have targeted civilian infrastructure and left ordinary residents terrified for their lives.

One 27-year-old university student, identified only as Sarah to protect her safety, survived a recent unprovoked drone strike at a crowded city fuel station, one of the primary targets of the attacks. She described the chaotic, devastating aftermath of the blast: the entire area lit up with fire before she lost visibility, leaving wounded people bleeding in the open, burned and shattered vehicles scattered across the lot. Sarah escaped with her life but carried permanent reminders of the attack: shrapnel embedded in her leg and hand from a second missile that struck while she was outside her vehicle. Sarah is far from alone in her experience. Recent data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled), an independent violence monitoring organization, records 27 separate drone strikes on el-Obeid in June alone — the highest monthly total recorded since the conflict began three years ago.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has confirmed the staggering human cost of this escalation: between June 6 and 28, 15 documented drone strikes killed at least 45 civilians and injured 41 more. In an address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week, Turk warned that the situation in el-Obeid is already a full-blown human rights catastrophe in progress. Beyond the immediate carnage of airstrikes, he added, 18 months of siege conditions have allowed widespread abuses to flourish along civilian escape routes, including summary executions, forced abductions, systematic torture, and sexual violence.

Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab based in the United States, explained why el-Obeid has become such a critical battleground for both warring factions. The city sits at a vital geographic chokepoint: it links RSF-controlled western Sudan to the army’s primary strongholds in the east, and controlling el-Obeid means controlling the critical highway leading to the national capital Khartoum and its adjacent twin city Omdurman. “If you control el-Obeid, you control the road to the capital,” Raymond noted, making the city a non-negotiable defensive priority for the Sudanese army, which currently holds the city but has been unable to stop the daily drone attacks.

For medical workers on the ground, the constant influx of casualties has stretched already fragile healthcare systems to a breaking point. A local hospital doctor, who also requested anonymity for her safety, described the overwhelming strain of the crisis to the BBC. “We receive injured patients after almost every drone attack,” she explained, noting that most casualties suffer devastating limb injuries, while many more face life-threatening head trauma. Through tears, she recalled one of her most tragic cases: a seven-month-old infant who required amputation of a hand to save her life, but ultimately did not survive the injury. “The situation is frightening. You leave your house as if you will never return,” the doctor said. “We are really suffering from the drones — no-one knows how and when they will die.”

International observers warn that el-Obeid could be on track to replicate the catastrophic violence that unfolded in el-Fasher earlier this year, when RSF forces captured the city after an 18-month siege. Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard pointed out that the pattern of siege and escalating attack in el-Obeid matches exactly the “playbook” used by the RSF in el-Fasher, where the United Nations confirmed the violence bore the “hallmarks of genocide.” In three days of fighting alone, more than 6,000 people were killed, with mostly Arab RSF fighters accused of systematically targeting non-Arab communities. The RSF has repeatedly denied all accusations of genocide and mass atrocities. In a recent statement responding to warnings of an impending massacre in el-Obeid, the paramilitary group claimed it would “work diligently” to guarantee full protection for all civilian residents and that all its military operations comply fully with international humanitarian law.

Raymond, however, pushed back on direct comparisons between the two crises, noting that el-Obeid does not currently have the same ethnic divides that drove the large-scale ethnic violence in el-Fasher. “Right now, we don’t see any indication of a large-scale plan by RSF to attack,” he said. Current on-the-ground reporting from Acled analyst Nohad Eltayeb confirms that while the RSF has effectively encircled el-Obeid from the north, west, and south, the Sudanese army has reinforced its positions with allied militias to maintain control of a critical supply corridor connecting the city to army-held eastern territories. “While it is very likely that the RSF will attack the city, this logistical lifeline and reinforcements render a complete RSF takeover improbable,” Eltayeb wrote in a June 30 analysis.

Satellite imagery analysis from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab confirms that most drone strikes have deliberately targeted fuel infrastructure: between late May and late June, at least eight separate fuel stations sustained damage consistent with aerial bombardment. Civilians report that even non-fuel vehicles, including water and sewage trucks, have been hit after being misidentified as fuel tankers. Beyond fuel sites, strikes have also hit el-Obeid’s main electrical substation, residential neighborhoods, and public markets in what Raymond describes as an apparent campaign to cripple normal daily life for the city’s population. The targeting of fuel and power has already created a cascading humanitarian crisis: fuel supplies are running critically low, pushing prices sharply higher, and without fuel to run generators, water pumping stations across the city are at risk of shutting down. That would leave hundreds of thousands of residents — including 100,000 internally displaced people who already fled violence elsewhere in Sudan — dependent on potentially contaminated water, opening the door to deadly outbreaks of waterborne disease.

Many of the displaced people who sought safety in el-Obeid are now facing the same violence they fled. Ahmed, a humanitarian worker who escaped conflict first in Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, then in Khartoum, now fears he will be forced to flee for a third time as drone strikes intensify. “People are always in shock and fear. They are unable to sleep,” he said. With summer temperatures forcing many residents to sleep outdoors to escape the heat, the constant droning of aircraft overhead leaves residents in a constant state of dread. “When the drones are flying overhead, making that noise, every night becomes a sleepless night.” For long-term residents like Sarah, the constant threat has upended all normal life. “People now leave their homes saying goodbye to their families because they don’t know if they will return or not,” she said.

A deepening diplomatic dispute between Ghana and South Africa, sparked by violent anti-foreign xenophobic protests in South Africa, has led Ghana to postpone a planned state visit by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa that was intended to ease cross-border tensions.

Ramaphosa had scheduled the high-profile visit for the first week of August, a trip widely viewed as an opportunity to open dialogue and repair frayed relations between the two African nations following weeks of unrest targeting foreign residents. But Ghanaian officials concluded that proceeding with the visit amid widespread public anger over the treatment of Ghanaian citizens in South Africa would likely trigger large-scale disruptive protests, leading to the decision to delay the trip indefinitely for the time being.

“We sent them a communication indicating that it would be best to defer the visit in view of the present climate around xenophobia,” Ghanaian government spokesman Felix Kwakye Ofosu confirmed to the BBC in a statement Tuesday.

In response, South African presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya reaffirmed the country’s continued commitment to strengthening bilateral ties, framing the two nations as sister partners aligned on advancing shared pan-African goals. “The two countries will continue to engage through diplomatic channels to identify a mutually convenient date,” Magwenya noted, downplaying the severity of the current rift.

Tensions began to spike earlier this year after a graphic video of a Ghanaian resident in South Africa being harassed and ordered to leave the country went viral across social media, sparking outrage across West Africa. Since the unrest erupted, Ghana has already repatriated more than 900 of its citizens from South Africa, with a final group of more than 900 additional Ghanaians expected to be brought home in the coming weeks.

Ghana is not alone in its response to the anti-immigrant unrest. Other African nations including Nigeria, Malawi, and Kenya have also organized repatriations for their citizens who felt unsafe amid the protests. Local anti-immigration groups gave undocumented migrants a deadline of June 30 to leave South Africa, and United Nations data indicates that roughly 25,000 foreign migrants have been repatriated to their home countries across the continent so far.

The dispute escalated dramatically last week over conflicting accounts of a Ghanaian national’s death in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha suburb. Ghanaian authorities allege that 40-year-old Bahiru Isak was killed during anti-immigration protests held on June 30, a claim South African officials have outright denied. South African authorities confirm only one Ghanaian fatality, 35-year-old Kwabena Boagen, and insist his death was not connected to the xenophobic demonstrations. This disagreement led South Africa’s Justice Minister to accuse Ghana of spreading deliberate misinformation about the unrest and irregular migration.

A core point of contention also remains over the immigration status of repatriated Ghanaians: Ghana claims nearly all of its citizens residing in South Africa held valid legal residency documentation, a claim Pretoria has rejected. Neither side has yet released public evidence to back up their opposing assertions.

Back in May, Ghana submitted an official petition to the African Union calling for a formal fact-finding mission and urgent intervention to address the recurring waves of xenophobic violence in South Africa. Ghanaian officials argue that attacks on foreign African residents directly contradict the core principles of the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement, which aims to facilitate free movement of people and goods across the continent.

Regional political analysts warn that if South Africa does not take urgent, concrete action to address the anti-immigrant violence and resolve ongoing diplomatic tensions, it faces growing political isolation across the African continent.

Xenophobic sentiment targeting foreign residents is not a new issue in South Africa. For decades, some native South Africans have blamed undocumented and documented foreign migrants alike for high levels of domestic unemployment and rising crime rates. But many citizens of other African nations have pushed back on this narrative, reminding Black South Africans of the widespread cross-border solidarity and support their countries provided during the anti-apartheid struggle that led to South Africa’s transition to multiracial democracy.

Additional reporting for this article was contributed by Khanyisile Ngcobo and Natasha Booty. More coverage of African political and social developments is available at BBCAfrica.com.

On Tuesday, a date carrying deep symbolic weight for both East African nations of Kenya and Tanzania, large-scale deployments of security forces successfully prevented planned opposition protests from going forward in both countries’ capitals.

July 7 holds distinct historical meaning for each neighbor. For Kenya, the date marks the 1990s pro-democracy movement that fought to establish multiparty rule, a landmark moment in the country’s democratic journey. For Tanzania, the date commemorates the 72nd founding anniversary of the organization that eventually became its current ruling party.

In Tanzania, the planned protests had two core demands: sweeping democratic reforms in the wake of a deeply contested October 2024 general election, and the immediate release of prominent opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who remains in custody on charges of treason that critics call politically motivated.

In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s bustling commercial hub, joint units of uniformed police and military personnel were positioned across key urban areas ahead of the scheduled protests. By the end of the day, no assembled protesters had been spotted in public spaces, and the city’s annual trade fair operated as scheduled under heavy armed guard.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the protest date on Monday evening, Tanzania’s Home Affairs Minister Patrobas Katambi made clear the government’s hardline stance. “Tanzania is not a country where any group can unilaterally dictate when and where protests will be held,” Katambi said, adding that state security forces were fully prepared to act against any action that threatened public order.

Political analysts note that the Tanzanian government has maintained an elevated state of alert ever since the disputed October election, when post-vote protests and a subsequent government crackdown left hundreds of people dead across the country.

Wade Green, a threat analyst at Aldebaran Threat Consultants, explained that for any protest movement to successfully challenge the current security posture, organizers would need to catch state forces off guard. “Right now, security forces are on extremely high alert across the country,” Green noted. “Unless opposition protesters are exceptionally well-organized and numerically overwhelming, they have no way to counter the lethal force that Tanzanian security forces deployed last year, and are fully prepared to use again.”

In Kenya’s capital Nairobi, the security response was equally robust. Police cordoned off the country’s parliamentary buildings with rolls of barbed wire, blocked access to major arterial roads, and took a small number of people into custody. Most businesses across the capital remained shuttered for the day as a result of the security buildup.

Senior Kenyan opposition politician James Orengo condemned the heavy police deployment, framing it as a deliberate campaign to intimidate ordinary citizens. “This is exactly what a police state looks like,” Orengo said. “Police are deployed en masse even when there is no unrest, no march, no active demonstration; roads are emptied of traffic, and even holding a simple press conference becomes nearly impossible. But we will not be deterred.”