News
World silent as drone strikes, extreme hunger ravage El Obeid families
The world has maintained a deafening silence as families in El Obeid, North Kordofan, in Sudan are dying in drone strikes and facing extreme hunger despite repeated warnings.
The city, increasingly encircled, is facing drone attacks and growing fears of a wider assault by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and partners had warned two weeks ago that atrocities could follow such a move. But reports from the ground show that for many families still inside, the nightmare is already unfolding.
“In El Obeid, families are starving while dodging indiscriminate attacks just to stay alive,” said NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland. “The world has been warned about this crisis and let it happen anyway.”
At least 45 civilians were killed in the city in just three weeks in June, according to the UN, as drone attacks repeatedly hit markets, schools, fuel stations, water infrastructure and vehicles. Just last week, an aid convoy, on the way to the city, was hit by a strike. In some areas, no aid has reached families for months, according to local partners.
NRC calls for immediate protection of civilians, aid workers and local responders in and around El Obeid, including concrete steps to stop strikes on hospitals, schools, markets and water, electricity and fuel infrastructure. Emergency funding is urgently needed as well as unfettered humanitarian access to El Obeid and the Kordofans.
The crisis is pressing into the most basic parts of daily life. With water facilities out of service, families have to queue for long hours to get water that is often unsafe for drinking. Once they manage to bring water home, they must choose whether to use it to drink, cook or wash. As the rainy season begins, the threat of cholera and other water-borne diseases is looming.
Many families are forced to mix flour with water just to fill their children’s stomachs because nothing else is left or they cannot afford the spiralling food prices.
Schools are kept open despite the violence to offer children a sense of normalcy. But, each week, multiple strikes have forced NRC and partners to suspend classes on some days. In some classrooms, children’s play has turned into re-enactments of shelling, and many can now name weapons by the sound they make alone.
“Children go to school with no water, no electricity and no food, in buildings that cannot protect them from the strikes overhead,” said Egeland. “At times, local responders deliver aid at night, because daylight has become more dangerous than darkness.”
With fuel stations struck or shut and vehicles targeted on the roads, transport costs have soared. NRC staff report that one litre of fuel now costs more than a teacher’s monthly salary. Some families are selling their belongings to afford a way out, but most simply cannot.
For many of the city’s displaced people who already escaped horrors in Al Fasher and other devastated areas, there is nowhere else to go. More families are also arriving, fleeing the violence around the city. They now risk living the very horrors they tried to escape.
“The atrocities committed throughout this war leave no doubt about what is at stake. The international community must now exert maximum pressure on the warring parties and those with influence over them. History will judge not only those who committed these crimes, but also those who had the power to help prevent them and failed to act,” said Egeland.
Eleven bodies have been found in the Central Mediterranean in the space of two days, according to Sea-Watch International, which described the region as a “state-led cemetery” amid ongoing migrant crossings.
In a series of posts on X, the German sea-rescue organisation said its Seabird reconnaissance aircraft spotted three dead bodies at sea near a capsized rubber boat.
The discovery came a day after the organisation’s rescue vessel Sea-Watch 5 found eight bodies in an advanced state of decomposition.
“We mourn the dead,” Sea-Watch said, calling for an end to what it described as the continued loss of life in the Mediterranean.
In a separate operation, Sea-Watch said its rescue vessel Aurora2 rescued 36 people from an overcrowded boat that was in distress.
The survivors included a baby, according to the organisation.
Sea-Watch said the vessel was close to Lampedusa but faced difficulties reaching the Italian authorities’ designated port of safety because of limited fuel supplies.
“The ship is almost in Lampedusa and the survivors, among them a baby, need to reach safety ASAP,” the organisation said, urging authorities to allow the vessel to enter the Italian island.
Sea-Watch later confirmed that the 36 survivors had safely disembarked in Lampedusa the previous evening.
The organisation wished the survivors “a prosperous life in safety and dignity” and praised what it described as their courage in undertaking the journey to Europe.
The latest incidents highlight the continuing dangers faced by people attempting to cross the Central Mediterranean, one of the world’s deadliest migration routes.
Après que l’organisation de sauvetage en mer SOS Méditerranée a découvert onze corps dans les eaux internationales de la Méditerranée le vendredi 14 août, l’avion de reconnaissance Seabird 1 de Sea-Watch et l’organisation de sauvetage RESQSHIP ont retrouvé trois autres corps au cours du week-end. L’équipage du Seabird a repéré les corps sans vie le samedi 15 août.
Après leur découverte, les navires de sauvetage Sea-Watch 5 et Nadir se sont rendus sur les lieux afin d’engager des mesures d’identification. En raison de l’état de décomposition des corps et des possibilités limitées de récupération dont disposent les navires civils, ceux-ci n’ont pas pu être récupérés. Selon les informations dont dispose actuellement Sea-Watch, les autorités européennes n’ont pas non plus entrepris d’opération de récupération jusqu’à présent.
Giulia Messmer, porte-parole de l’organisation Sea-Watch, a déclaré :
« Ce sont les personnes qui se cachent derrière la politique de “réduction des arrivées” : pourchassées de leur vivant, oubliées dans la mort. Derrière chacun de ces corps se trouve une personne qui avait une vie et des proches qui pourraient ne jamais savoir ce qui lui est arrivé. Les responsables politiques européens qui font passer la fermeture des frontières avant les vies humaines portent une responsabilité. »
Depuis le début de l’année, plus de 1 600 personnes sont mortes ou portées disparues en tentant de traverser la Méditerranée. Les corps retrouvés illustrent de manière tragique les conséquences d’une politique qui prive les personnes de voies de fuite sûres tout en restreignant, entravant ou omettant les opérations de sauvetage nécessaires en Méditerranée.
Sea-Watch appelle à la mise en place de voies de migration sûres ainsi qu’à un dispositif de sauvetage en mer organisé et financé par les États afin d’éviter de nouvelles pertes de vies humaines en Méditerranée.
Three more bodies have been found in the Mediterranean Sea, days after the rescue organisation SOS Méditerranée discovered 11 bodies in international waters.
The latest bodies were spotted on Saturday, August 15, by the Sea-Watch reconnaissance aircraft Seabird 1 and the rescue organisation RESQSHIP, according to Sea-Watch.
Following the discovery, the Sea-Watch 5 and Nadir rescue vessels sailed to the location to begin identification procedures. However, the bodies could not be recovered because of their advanced state of decomposition and the limited recovery capabilities of the civilian vessels.
Sea-Watch said, according to its current information, that European authorities had not initiated any recovery operation.
Giulia Messmer, a spokesperson for Sea-Watch, said the deaths represented the human cost of European migration policies that prioritise border control over the protection of lives.
“These are the people behind ‘fewer arrivals’ – hunted alive, forgotten dead,” Messmer said. She added that behind each body was a person with a life and relatives who might never learn what happened to them.
Sea-Watch said more than 1,600 people have died or gone missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year.
The organisation said the discovery of the bodies highlighted what it described as the consequences of policies that deny migrants safe routes while restricting or failing to provide adequate search-and-rescue operations at sea.
Sea-Watch called for the establishment of safe migration routes and a comprehensive, state-organised sea-rescue system to prevent further deaths in the Mediterranean.
Sea-Watch 5 découvre huit corps dans un état avancé de décomposition
Sea-Watch 5 finds eight bodies in advanced state of decomposition
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