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 U.N. Secretary-General António 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 U.N. experts said bore the “hallmarks of genocide.” The U.N. 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.”

Full report : Fears grow for civilians as paramilitary group closes in on strategic Sudanese city.