The Rapid Support Force (RSF) militia is displacing thousands more people in Sudan as it prepares for a new offensive following atrocities during an attack on El Fasher in western Darfur.
In a report released late Sunday, the United Nations warned of the humanitarian impact as the militia onslaught continues to displace thousands of people.
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The RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, popularly known as Hemedi, released a video the same day saying it was “mobilizing massive forces and foretelling the imminent release of El Obeid.”
RSF has killed and displaced thousands of people in the past week after seizing control of El Fasher from government forces in the capital of North Kordofan in central Sudan, east of Darfur.
The Sudanese military currently controls El Obeid. However, both sides are preparing for a major battle over the city.
In an RSF video, a soldier with a weapon boasted that “all our forces have assembled” in Barra, 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of El Obeid.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated in a report released Sunday that more than 1,200 people were evacuated from Bara and Umm Rawaba in North Kordofan state on Friday alone.
This follows the evacuation of 36,825 people from several areas of North Kordofan since last week.
In South Kordofan, IOM said field teams estimated that 360 people were evacuated from the towns of Abasiya and Derami on Saturday. The UN agency said further displacement was expected as the situation remained “tense and highly fluid”.
While the RSF and military are preparing for battle in El Obeid, the humanitarian situation remains catastrophic across Sudan, particularly in and around El Fasher.
A UN team estimated that an additional 8,631 people were evacuated from El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, over the weekend. This means more than 70,000 people have fled the region since the RSF captured Darfur’s last major city on October 26, driving out Sudanese forces after an 18-month siege.
Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, told reporters in New York on Friday that there had been reports of “serious violations” since the RSF took control of Barra last week, including the summary executions of several Red Crescent volunteers.
Tens of thousands of hungry and desperate people remain trapped inside El Fasher, and the fate of thousands more who have evacuated but have not yet arrived in Taouira and other nearby towns remains unknown.
A video circulating online on Monday showed dozens of bodies strewn on the roads surrounding El Fasher.
The United Nations and international aid agencies have verified numerous accounts by survivors that RSF fighters engaged in mass executions, torture, rape, sexual abuse, and held people for ransom.
“We are hearing horror stories from many who arrive here, and from those who were here in the weeks before the RSF occupied El Fasher. Some say they were stopped as they tried to leave the besieged city, and that their relatives, especially men, were abducted and imprisoned by the RSF. Many here are mothers and children,” Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said in a report from the northern Sudanese city of Al Daba.
“Some people on social media say they saw relatives killed by the RSF. Others saw shelling leave decapitated bodies.”
Famine confirmed in two regions
The Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC) announced on Monday that famine was detected in El Fasher and Kadugri in South Kordofan.
The United Nations-backed World Hunger Monitor confirmed widespread hunger in Gaza in August, but said 20 other regions in Darfur and Kordofan were also at serious risk of starvation.
As of September, 375,000 people were already estimated to be hungry across Darfur and Kordofan, and an additional 6.3 million people across the country are believed to be suffering from extreme hunger and at risk of starvation.
Without a ceasefire and safe humanitarian access, many more Sudanese are likely to die of hunger and malnutrition, the IPC said.
In the Northern Province, large numbers of Sudanese rely on al-Daba. Many of the people there have already been displaced several times, but some are packing up to leave again for another refugee camp on the outskirts of the city, fearing the conflict will catch up with them in al-Daba.
“The streets were full of bodies,” Yahya Abdullah, who narrowly escaped El Fasher with his four children, told Al Jazeera from Al Daba. He had previously lost his wife to an RSF drone attack.
He said RSF fighters fired machine guns at people, including children, on the streets of El Fasher. “I heard one of them say, “Kill them all.”
ICC investigates war crimes
RSF is currently under investigation for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the court’s prosecutor announced on Monday.
In a statement from The Hague, they said they were taking “immediate steps” to “preserve and collect relevant evidence for use in future prosecutions” regarding crimes in El Fasher following the RSF’s takeover of the city.
The court said the atrocities were “part of a broader pattern of violence afflicting the entire Darfur region” and “may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The specific types of crimes being investigated include ethnically targeted attacks, sexual violence, including the use of rape as a weapon, kidnappings, indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and attacks on medical facilities.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed and continue to be committed in Darfur,” ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazat Shameem Khan said at a press conference in June.
