Washington— Sudan Scope
A bipartisan group of more than 20 Democratic U.S. senators has written to Secretary of State Marco Rubio warning of an imminent siege by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on the city of El Obeid and calling for concrete U.S. action to prevent a repeat of the mass atrocities that devastated El Fasher last October.
In the letter dated August 3, 2026, the senators express alarm that the RSF’s advancing encirclement of El Obeid threatens “a repeat of the mass atrocities and bloodshed” seen in El Fasher.
They note that while the State Department has issued statements of concern, “words are not enough.” The United States, they argue, must use its leverage, including by “ceasing certain U.S. arms sales to external actors that are fueling this war, including the United Arab Emirates, which continues to arm the RSF.”
The letter details the 18-month siege of El Fasher, which UN investigators said bore the “hallmarks of genocide.” According to a UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission report cited by the senators, RSF forces cut off food, water, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid while subjecting the city to repeated shelling and assaults.
The siege ended in a three-day rampage in October 2025 that included mass executions, the killing of more than 460 people at El-Saudi Hospital, and the pursuit and slaughter of civilians attempting to flee. Survivors described notorious RSF commander Abu Lulu, known as the “Butcher of El-Fasher,” executing a pregnant woman and declaring he had planned to kill 2,000 people that day.
Satellite imagery analyzed by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab reportedly showed bodies piled in streets and mass burial sites.UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on July 3 called the situation in El Obeid “a red alert” requiring urgent action by world leaders. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned that “too often in this brutal war, clear warnings have been ignored.”
The State Department itself issued a June 22 statement citing “alarming indications that mass atrocities could be imminent” around El Obeid and urged the RSF to cease actions endangering civilians. An estimated 500,000 civilians are now at risk in the city, many of them already displaced from elsewhere in Kordofan.
The senators point to a growing body of evidence that the UAE is the RSF’s primary external backer, supplying military, financial, and technical support. They cite a May 2026 Human Rights Watch report on UAE-trained Colombian mercenaries who fought around El Fasher and trained RSF recruits (including child soldiers), a February 2026 Reuters investigation into a UAE-financed training camp in Ethiopia, and earlier U.S. intelligence reports of increased UAE materiel flows to the RSF.“
We remain greatly concerned by this administration’s grave failure to act despite the chorus of alarm bells,” the letter states. “What occurred in El Fasher is a stark warning of what could unfold in El Obeid and across Sudan if this administration—and the international community—continues this current pattern of inaction.”The senators request an update on steps the administration is taking “beyond just words” and ask for a response by August 17, 2026.
The letter is signed by Sens. Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine, Jeff Merkley, Peter Welch, Angela Alsobrooks, Bernie Sanders, Raphael Warnock, Michael Bennet, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Adam Schiff, Brian Schatz, Martin Heinrich, Chris Murphy, Patty Murray, Mazie Hirono, Ron Wyden, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Alex Padilla, Tina Smith, and Jon Ossoff.
The correspondence comes as the civil war in Sudan, now in its fourth year, continues to produce one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with repeated warnings that El Obeid could become the next major flashpoint.
