A Sudanese woman walks as she carries a plastic canister in al-Rahmaniyah camp for displaced people, near the city of El-Obeid in the southern Kordofan region. AFP
Addressing an urgent debate at the UN Human Rights Council, Turk urged world leaders to help prevent atrocities in the city.
"The signs from El-Obeid are clear and unmistakable: another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan, this time in the capital of the strategic state of North Kordofan," Turk said.
"Civilians have been subjected to siege-like conditions for 18 months, battered by relentless drone strikes as the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces battle for control over areas surrounding the city.
"This is not a drill. It is a red alert that needs to land on the desks of heads of state and government around the world.
"Their phones should be running hot in the coming days and weeks, with ideas on how to prevent atrocity crimes in El-Obeid and in other places in Kordofan."
The UN's top rights body was holding a rare urgent debate on the human rights situation around El-Obeid, following a request by Britain on behalf of a group of countries.
This debate comes amid a growing and damning body of reports from international humanitarian organizations and war monitors detailing the gruesome scale of violenece and huamnitarian catastrophe in Sudan.
On Wednesday, Amnesty International alleged the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during their attack on El-Fasher city between 2024 and 2025.
Amnesty's wide-ranging report found that the RSF "committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during its campaign to seize El Fasher".
The NGO interviewed 247 victims or witnesses between early 2024 and October 2025 in North Darfur.
It said the RSF systematically attacked settlements around El-Fasher which housed the Zaghawa people, an ethnic group in western Darfur.
The report alleged widespread and deliberate violence against children including killing, abductions, forced recruitment, and rape.
"It is a stain on the conscience of humanity," said Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard in a statement.
RSF militants burned homes long after residents had fled, the report said, "suggesting an intent to render the areas uninhabitable", consistent with "ethnic cleansing".
During the final RSF offensive on El-Fasher in October 2025, Amnesty said "hundreds were executed, and many others were tortured or detained" as they attempted to flee.
Amnesty International -- which stressed that its investigation into the incidents was ongoing -- also said such acts "may be relevant to the crime of genocide".
Sudan's conflict erupted in April 2023 between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Kordofan -- home to oil deposits and the RSF's most powerful paramilitary allies -- remains a key battleground.
El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, sits on a key route linking RSF-held areas in the western Darfur region to army-controlled regions in the east.
A city of half a million people that hosts nearly 100,000 refugees displaced by the civil war, El-Obeid has, in recent weeks, faced its most intense RSF attacks yet.
After breaking a prolonged siege in February last year, the army has struggled to stop the RSF from reimposing a blockade through drone strikes targeting the city and the main highway out.
Recent attacks have hit the main power station and fuel depots, plunged neighbourhoods into darkness and shut down water pumps.
The European countries behibnd the debate plan to present a draft resolution to the 47-country rights council.
Short link: