By Karen Volker - 04 August 2026

The major Sudanese city of El Obeid has been dark for a month. Drone strikes have knocked out the power station, the water supply and fuel depots, and the UN warns that women face increasing sexual violence simply collecting water. Roughly half a million residents are trapped inside the encirclement by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and the city may now hold nearly twice that number, swollen by families who have fled there from across the Kordofan region. The United Nations human rights commissioner raised a “red alert” over the impending human rights catastrophe

We must not stand by and watch as more atrocities takes place in Sudan within a year. 

The same happened to El Fasher, 350 miles west: the same encirclement, destruction of the infrastructure, and choking of aid. When El Fasher fell just last October after an 18-month siege, the R.S.F. carried out mass killings, gang rapes and abductions. 

Researchers at Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab had warned Washington, the U.N. Security Council and the public in July 2023, 27 months in advance, that a massacre amounting to potential genocide could follow if El Fasher fell.

Now history is repeating itself at El Obeid, as the RSF surrounds the city. The U.N. mission has opened an urgent inquiry, warning that it sees the same pattern it documented at El Fasher. The G7 and the European Union have pleaded with both sides to avoid new atrocities. 

Without coordinated action, El Fasher will become a dangerous template –- for El Obeid, and for whichever devastating war comes after it. The world cannot afford another such humanitarian misstep. 

Community and faith leaders at the grassroots, deeply respected and intimately familiar with local realities, are uniquely positioned to broker humanitarian corridors, and play a pivotal role in preventing cycles of violence from escalating. Their influence can mean the difference between ongoing conflict and the possibility of peace and relief for those most affected. By empowering and supporting these local voices, we can develop interventions that are more responsive, effective, and truly reflective of needs on the ground.

At the United Religions Initiative (URI), we aim to end religiously motivated violence and to create cultures of peace, justice, and healing. This work isn't just aspiration; it draws on a 25-year track record of grassroots implementation. One of the tools we use is the "health approach" to violence prevention, developed by Dr. Gary Slutkin, founder of Cure Violence Global, where I worked for years, and where I led adaptation and implementation in Iraq, Syria, Morocco, and the West Bank before bringing that experience directly into URI's network. This is a tested theory of violence prevention that has significantly reduced community and other violence in areas with elevated levels of shootings and killings, with a recent systematic review of 13 independent evaluations across 27 Cure Violence sites worldwide finding that nearly 70% of measured outcomes showed reductions in shootings or killings

The approach treats violence as a contagious process that can be interrupted and follows the same steps used to stop the spread of an epidemic. From Chicago to Cape Town, the approach is the same: Outbreaks are stopped by credible messengers who catch rumors before they spread and step in to prevent conflict from escalating to violence. 

This approach has been underutilized globally, not least in Sudan. The conflict is deeply entrenched, and I am under no illusion that local interventions by credible messengers can fully remedy a decades-long open wound like the conflict in Western Sudan, but this kind of grassroots intervention must be part of the process.

Consider who is fighting in Sudan. The RSF are largely comprised of longstanding nomadic militia groups from Darfur and Kordofan, including many of the Janjaweed militia forces primarily responsible for genocide in Darfur between 2003 and 2005. Why would we expect something different from them now?

With a median age of approximately 19 years old, most Sudanese have been raised in the shadow of the horrors of the Darfur genocide of the early 2000’s. Numerous studies show that exposure to violence – including in a conflict situation – leads to more violence. This is a classic example of intergenerational transmission of violence: yesterday’s witnesses become tomorrow’s fighters – unless someone breaks the chain.

Faith actors have an important role to play in breaking the chain. Allow me to highlight one example the URI network in Nigeria: Two faith leaders, Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye, who were once on opposing sides of religious conflict in Nigeria, now they are leading voices for peace and reconciliation. Through their work at the Interfaith Mediation Centre in Kaduna, a URI Cooperation Circle, they promote dialogue and understanding between Christian and Muslim communities. Their work is a testament to how with appropriate leadership former adversaries can unite to facilitate and foster lasting peace.

The international community must take immediate action to end the war in Sudan and we implore all parties to the conflict to fully respect and adhere to international humanitarian and human rights law.

For our part, URI is committed to working with our long-standing partners, the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) of which Sudan is a member country, to engage key stakeholders—including faith and traditional leaders—to foster dialogue and incentivize concrete steps that will help in halt this unfolding tragedy.

The time for action is now. El Fasher came after 27 months of warnings, 18 months of brutal siege, and 1 week of genocidal violence. We cannot stand by and watch while the same unfolds in El Obeid or other cities.

Karen Volker is the executive director of the United Religions Initiative, the world’s largest grassroots interfaith peacebuilding network, active in more than 100 countries. She previously served as executive vice president of Cure Violence Global and spent 25 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, including as director of the Middle East Partnership Initiative.

Photo by André from Pexels