The UN human rights director has called on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to end the siege of el-Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur province, claiming that more than 700 people had been killed there since May. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement on Friday that the siege and “the relentless fighting are devastating lives every day on a massive scale.” “This worrying state of affairs cannot go on. This terrible siege must be lifted by the Rapid Support Forces. Citing data derived in part from interviews with persons who had left the region, the UN rights office reported that it had recorded at least 782 civilian deaths and over 1,143 injuries since May. According to the report, the deaths occurred during frequent and heavy RSF shelling of residential areas with a high population density and frequent airstrikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces.
El-Fasher under siege
The UN human rights office stated that such assaults on people might qualify as war crimes. Both sides have denied on numerous occasions that they intentionally attacked civilians in el-Fasher and the surrounding area, although they have accused one another of doing so. For over 18 months, the RSF, under the command of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s former deputy, and the Sudanese army, under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, have been engaged in combat. Over 12 million people have been forced from their homes as a result of the war, and UN organizations have found it difficult to provide aid. The Sudanese army and its allies are battling for a final foothold in the Darfur region, and El-Fasher is one of the most active frontlines between them and the RSF. As was the case in West Darfur last year, observers worry that an RSF win there might result in ethnic retaliation. According to the chairman of the World Health Organization, paramilitary bombardment on the city’s major hospital last Friday left nine people dead and twenty injured. Pro-democracy activists said that more RSF attacks on the hospital and other areas of the city on Wednesday killed 10 civilians and injured 20 more. At least 38 people were also slain in the city center on Sunday by a paramilitary drone attack.
700 lives lost in Sudan crisis
Over the past two weeks, RSF artillery shelling has also forced thousands of civilians to evacuate the nearby Zamzam Camp, where experts say a famine is affecting a population of over half a million. Any significant assault on Zamzam or el-Fasher, according to Turk, would “catapult civilian suffering to catastrophic levels.” “Every effort must be made, including by the international community, to stop the siege and prevent such an attack,” he continued. In other regions of the nation, fighting has also persisted. Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, denounced on Friday the attack that killed three employees of the World Food Programme (WFP) the day before. According to Guterres spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, aircraft bombardment struck the organization’s field office in Yabus, Blue Nile State. “All attacks on UN and assistance workers and facilities are condemned by the Secretary-General. He demands a comprehensive inquiry,” Dujarric said in a statement.
Tragedy in El-Fasher
“Underscores the devastating toll that Sudan’s brutal conflict is having on millions of people in need and the humanitarians trying to reach them with life-saving assistance,” Dujarric said of the tragedy. He reaffirmed appeals for an urgent ceasefire and declared 2024 to be the “deadliest year on record” for relief workers in Sudan. According to officials, activists, and rights organizations, violence between the army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan has intensified, killing dozens of people in the last two days. According to rights group Emergency Lawyers, an airstrike on a bustling market in Kabkabiya, a hamlet around 180 kilometers (110 miles) west of North Darfur’s capital el-Fasher, which is now encircled by the RSF, killed over 100 people and injured hundreds more, including women and children, on Monday. According to the Reuters news agency, the army disputed responsibility for the attack, claiming that it had the right to bomb any area that the RSF exploited for military objectives. The RSF did not immediately comment.
Sudan’s deadly conflict
According to a medical source at Al-Nao Hospital in Omdurman, one of the last hospitals in the region to take in patients, the hospital took in 15 of the people murdered in the bus attack, and seven more passed away there later. This information was provided to the AFP news agency. The source, who asked to remain anonymous out of concern for retaliation, added that the hospital had also “received 45 injured from different areas” of Omdurman. Five people were killed Tuesday when the RSF shelled the famine-stricken Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur, according to the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees, a civil society organization.
