The United Nations human rights office in Sudan said “brutal attacks” were escalating in El Fasher after the militia Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took control of the western city of Darfur last month.
“For the past 10 days, El Fasher has witnessed an escalation of brutal attacks. El Fasher has become a city of sorrow,” Li Fong, Sudan’s UN human rights envoy, said in a video published on X on Saturday.
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“Civilians who survived 18 months of siege and hostilities are now enduring atrocities on an unimaginable scale,” she said.
“Hundreds of people were killed, including women, children and injured people who sought safety in hospitals and schools. Entire families were cut to death while fleeing. Others simply disappeared.”
The warning comes as aid groups say thousands of people evacuated from the capital of North Darfur state are facing dire conditions in the town of Tawila.
More than 16,000 people have arrived in Tawila, many in dire need of food, medicine, shelter supplies and psychological support, Adam Rohal, a spokesman for Sudan’s Internally Displaced Persons and Refugee Camps Support Group, told The Associated Press.
Video footage from aid groups showed displaced people living in barren areas with barely enough tents, many of them improvised patchwork tarpaulins and sheets. Lohar said some families are surviving on just one meal a day.
On Friday, Médecins Sans Frontières, known by its French initials MSF, reported “extremely high levels of malnutrition among children and adults.”
Mathilde Vu, advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Sudan, told AFP news agency that many of the families arriving in Tawira were bringing “children that are not their own.”
“That means we have to bring in children who have lost their parents along the way, whether they’re missing, disappeared in the chaos, detained or killed,” she says.
Tawila is just one of several locations where people fled after the RSF overran El Fasher, the last Sudanese military stronghold in Sudan’s western Darfur region, on October 26.
An October 28 report from Yale University’s Humanitarian Institute found evidence of “mass murder,” including obvious pools of blood visible on satellite images.
The International Organization for Migration estimates that as of November 4, around 82,000 people had evacuated the city and surrounding areas and headed to Tawila, Qebukabiya, Melit and Kutum.
Before the RSF takeover, El Fasher had a population of approximately 260,000 people. U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said Friday that civilians still trapped there were being prevented from escaping.
“We are concerned that abhorrent atrocities, including summary executions, rape and ethnically motivated violence, continue in the city,” it added.
El Obeid prepares for RSF attack
As Darfur’s humanitarian crisis worsens, the conflict is also spreading to the neighboring Kordofan region.
Earlier this week, a drone attack killed at least 40 people and injured dozens more in El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state.
A military official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press on Saturday that the military intercepted two Chinese-made drones targeting El Obeid on Saturday morning.
The group’s recent seizure of the town of Bara, about 60 kilometers (36 miles) to the north, has heightened fears among locals of RSF attacks, causing more than 36,000 people to flee the town, the United Nations said.
El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, is located on an important supply route connecting Darfur and Khartoum, approximately 400 kilometers apart.
The takeover would be a strategic prize for the RSF, which has been at war with Sudanese forces since April 2023.
ceasefire proposal
The conflict has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization. Aid groups say the real death toll could be many times higher.
After two years of war, there are no signs of tensions easing, despite a cease-fire proposed by the Quad, a group of international mediators from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
On Thursday, the RSF responded positively to the idea, but the next day explosions were reported in the Khartoum region and the town of Atbara, north of the capital (both held by the military).
The ceasefire plan calls for a three-month humanitarian halt followed by a permanent ceasefire, ostensibly paving the way for an eventual political transition to a civilian government.
But the military-backed government, which controls much of northern, eastern and central Sudan, including Khartoum, has yet to publicly respond to the proposal.
On Saturday, Minni Arko Minnawi, the governor of Darfur state, told the TV program “X” that a ceasefire that is not conditional on the withdrawal of the RSF would mean the division of Sudan.
The fall of El Fasher left the RSF in control of all five provincial capitals in the vast western region, effectively dividing the country.
