Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) suspends its activities over the exploitation scandal of Sudanese refugee women

The UN Security Council has expressed grave concern "about the imminent risk of large-scale atrocities" in Sudan's large city of El Obeid, where the United Nations fears an attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

In the statement, council members urged the aforementioned forces to "immediately stop their attack on al-Obeid", pointing to "significant military reinforcements" around the city.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Sudan, Pekka Haavisto, on Friday called the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, to ask him not to attack El Obeid, stressing "the urgent need to de-escalate the situation in El Obeid and avoid any action that would exacerbate the already dire humanitarian situation and further endanger the lives of civilians," according to UN spokesman Stephane de Garric.

Worsening humanitarian situation

The Sudan Doctors Network announced that the deliberate bombing of the substation and gas stations led to the outage of a number of medical facilities and the suspension of water stations.

A statement from the network revealed that the attacks affected dialysis centers and emergency departments in particular, which exacerbated the humanitarian situation and increased the suffering of citizens and displaced people, noting that the continuation of the attacks reflects negatively on the ability of hospitals to provide care to the sick and injured.

The network warned that the repeated targeting of infrastructure poses a direct threat to the lives of more than one million civilians and displaced people facing severe shortages of drinking water, health services and energy.

In conjunction with the mobilization of its forces and military vehicles around the city, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) marches have been bombarding the city of Al-Obeid for 9 consecutive days, with a direct focus on fuel stations, tankers, and food trucks, and targeting residential neighborhoods and vital service facilities, the latest of which was the electricity substation last Thursday evening.

EU warns Rapid Support Forces

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that any attack on El Obeid could lead to new international crimes, citing UN-documented abuses in El Fasher and Zamzam camp for displaced people over the past year.

In a tweet on the "X" platform, the head of the EU mission in Sudan, Wolfram Fitter, criticized the approach of the "Rapid Support Forces" in besieging and starving strategic cities, as happened in Al-Jazeera, Al-Fasher, Kadugli and Dilling, and is now happening in Al-Rahd, Babanoussa, Bara and Al-Obeid, and described it as  an "unacceptable" policy, warning that "those responsible for these actions will face sanctions and will be prosecuted forever."

MSF suspends activity

Against the backdrop of the scandal of extortion and sexual exploitation of Sudanese refugee women on the border with Chad, the government of the Rapid Support Coalition (RSF) has suspended all MSF activities in areas under its control.

The Prime Minister of the "Tasas" coalition, Mohamed Hassan Al-Taaishi, issued a decision to suspend all the activities of the organization and assign a specialized ministerial committee to take measures to bridge the humanitarian gap that may result, and ordered the formation of a fact-finding committee to submit its report within a month.

The Rapid Support platforms stated that the decision came in order to ensure accountability and avoid impunity, following reports of serious human rights violations and sexual extortion crimes committed by dozens of employees of the organization against Sudanese refugee women in eastern Chad.

Sexual scandal haunts  MSF

  On Monday (June 15th), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)  announced the dismissal of 18 of its staff following investigations into "serious allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse" reported by Sudanese refugee women in eastern Chad.

"When investigations established serious misconduct, immediate disciplinary action was taken," the organization said in a statement. As a result, 18 staff members were dismissed and are now banned from working with MSF."

An extensive investigation into reports by the Associated Press, which began in the fall of 2024 and was completed in July 2025, revealed 59 potential violations ranging from harassment to sexual abuse, prompting the organization to fire 18 staff members and barred them from working with the organization in the future.

The investigation confirmed repeated cases of sexual exploitation of refugee women in exchange for food, water and infant formula, as well as the exchange of jobs for sex, and the exploitation of minors in prostitution, suggesting the existence of organized and protected sex trafficking networks by individuals who were supposed to provide humanitarian protection to refugees.

The investigation showed that these behaviors prompted local community leaders to impose a curfew and prevent girls from approaching the organization's headquarters, in addition to monitoring the incident of transporting 7 refugee girls in a vehicle belonging to the organization under the pretext of employing them for daily wages at water sites, and later taking them to an isolated site and exposing them to sexual abuse.