'No Safe Options' as RSF Fighters Close In on Key Sudan City

International leaders warn of possible atrocities as thousands shelter with nowhere left to run

By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost

Thousands of people are trapped in a key Sudanese city with, in the words of the BBC, "no safe options," as Rapid Support Forces fighters advance on the area. International leaders have warned the RSF may be preparing an assault, raising fears of further atrocities in a war that has already displaced millions across Sudan.

The BBC's reporting does not name the city in the material available here, but describes a population with nowhere to go — hemmed in by advancing paramilitary forces and cut off from safe evacuation routes. That single dispatch is the only detailed account of the situation available at this time; readers should treat casualty figures and troop positions as preliminary until independent confirmation emerges.

Sudan's civil war, between the RSF and the Sudanese army, has ground on for more than two years, driving what aid agencies have repeatedly called one of the world's worst displacement crises. The warnings from international leaders cited by the BBC suggest concern is mounting that a renewed RSF push could bring the kind of mass violence already documented in other Sudanese cities during this conflict.

We don't have, in the material we've been given, official casualty figures, the identity of the international leaders quoted, or confirmation of RSF's specific military objectives. Those gaps matter. What's clear is that people are sheltering in place because leaving is no longer an option — and that the world has been warned, again, that it may be about to watch a familiar horror repeat itself.

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— Compiled from reporting by the BBC.

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