The Next Century Foundation Sudan Office participated in a high-level side event during the 62nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, held in Geneva earlier this month, where governments, UN experts, diplomats, and civil society organisations convened to address pressing global human rights challenges. The event focused on Sudan’s rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis, highlighting the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in Chad and the Central African Republic amid the world’s largest displacement emergency.
Organised by the Sudan Knowledge Centre (SKC), the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), the African Centre for Legal Studies, and partner organisations, the briefing underscored the scale of the crisis, with an estimated 16 million people forcibly displaced by the conflict. Participants raised grave concerns over widespread violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including reports of forced evictions and demolitions in Khartoum with alleged ethnic dimensions, and called for stronger international action to protect civilians.
The head of the Next Century Foundation Sudan Office, Ms Eiman Baldo, presented a paper advocating enhanced civilian protection, increased humanitarian assistance for displaced populations, and a critical review of current displacement tracking methodologies. The Foundation argued that existing systems fail to adequately capture the rapidly changing realities on the ground and proposed developing a complementary social protection scale to work alongside the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), enabling humanitarian actors to identify needs in real time and deliver more targeted and effective assistance.
Discussions also centred on the rapidly worsening security situation in El-Obeid, North Kordofan, where participants urged the international community to move beyond expressions of concern and take concrete action to prevent further atrocities. El-Obeid (also spelled Al Ubayyid) is the capital of the North Kordofan state in central Sudan. Located approximately 360 km (224 miles) southwest of Khartoum, it serves as a critical strategic, commercial, and logistical hub linking the capital, the Darfur region, and Sudan’s southern states. It is currently beseiged by the advancing Rapid Support Forces and defended by the retreating Sudan Armed Forces as these two milita groups continue to slug out an unwinnable war in which the true victims are the civilians.
During the Human Rights Council session, the “Core Group” — comprising the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway — called for an urgent debate on the situation in El-Obeid and surrounding areas, in which the Next Century Foundation participated. On 3 July 2026, the Human Rights Council convened an urgent debate following a “red alert” issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights over fears of an imminent assault on the city by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The Council subsequently adopted a consensus resolution mandating the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan to urgently investigate alleged violations in the area, while the Core Group, the European Union, and the United Nations merely called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, and safe, unhindered humanitarian access. They Core Group has failed utterly to take any serious interest in bringing the warring parties to the negotiation table for peace talks. They weep crocodile tears as usual.
