Civilians keep flowing into besieged El Obeid, and no one can agree how many are there

The Ayin Network, a Sudanese independent outlet, reported on 25 August that displaced people “from surrounding villages and further afield continue to flock in” to El Obeid, and that humanitarian workers say the city has reached capacity. Ayin also states plainly that “estimates for the displaced vary widely,” and its own report carries two figures that cannot both be right: some estimates put 100,000 displaced people in the city, while the local Humanitarian Aid Commission — a Sudanese government body — says the population now exceeds 3 million, roughly half of them displaced. Al Jazeera, citing Sudan Tribune, reported on 20 August that El Obeid’s pre-war population was 750,000 and that “authorities now estimate it has reached 3.4 million.” NPR, on 7 August, put the figure at “more than 100,000 displaced people” sheltering in camps.

Mohamed Ibrahim, a political analyst, told Ayin: “The fact that people are flooding into a city that has been under siege for months and quite possibly endured one of the most intense, persistent drone strikes of any city, says a lot about how unstable the situation is.” Ayin records drone strikes on markets, water tankers, a prison and the army command headquarters east of the city between June and August 2026; the siege itself was lifted by the army in February 2025. Residents told NPR the skies are sometimes filled with as many as 40 drones at a time, alongside water shortages, a worsening cholera outbreak and high reported rates of sexual violence. Sudan researcher Eric Reeves, a long-standing advocate-analyst, told NPR: “There is no likelihood of a military rescue of el-Obeid.”

The pressure is not only on El Obeid. Anadolu Agency reported on 25 August that 27 people, including four children, were killed that day in two separate areas of South Kordofan, attributing the attacks to the RSF-aligned SPLM-N (al-Hilu). The sole source is the Sudan Doctors Network, a local medical group whose statement says the attacks “resulted in a large wave of displacement among citizens towards the Abu Hitan area and Kadugli”; Anadolu is reporting the group’s claim, not its own verification, and no location names or named spokesperson appear in the copy. Kadugli was under RSF siege until the army broke it on 3 February 2026. Separately, IOM announced on 19 August that more than 200,000 people have been newly displaced across Kordofan since late 2025, with Director General Amy Pope saying: “The warning signs are impossible to ignore.”

Assessment: The spread between 100,000 and 1.5 million is not a rounding problem, it is two different objects being counted: camp registrations by aid agencies, and city-wide claims by a government commission with a standing interest in demonstrating need inside army-held territory. Merge them and you get a number that means nothing. The calendar matters more than either figure: the June–September lean season ends this month, and the IPC’s February–May analysis already had 19.5 million people — some 41 percent of Sudanese — at Phase 3 or worse, with about 135,000 in Catastrophe and famine risk flagged in 14 areas. The de-confirmation of famine in North Darfur on 14 May was a data event, not a recovery.