Fears grow as forces near strategic Sudanese city

Paramilitary attacks on a strategic city of a half-million people in central Sudan have raised international alarm that another round of mass violence against civilians is being planned as the country’s war surges into its fourth year. “We must not allow the horrors of El Fasher to be repeated in El Obeid,” a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. More than 6,000 people were killed in three days last year when the Rapid Support Forces seized el-Fasher in an attack that UN experts said bore the “hallmarks of genocide”.  The UN Security Council has said it is alarmed by reports of “substantial” reinforcements by the RSF around el-Obeid in North Kordofan. The United States, Britain and some other European countries have warned of “escalating atrocity risks”.