The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, has expressed grave concern at the outbreak of heavy clashes in the town of El Fasher, despite repeated calls for the warring parties to refrain from attacking the town. Since Friday, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have launched fresh attacks on the North Darfur provincial capital.
Nkweta-Salami said in a statement Saturday that the violence threatens the lives of more than 800,000 civilians living in El Fasher.
“I am equally disturbed by reports of the use of heavy weaponry and attacks in highly populated areas in the city center and the outskirts of Al Fasher [El Fasher], resulting in multiple casualties,” the Humanitarian Coordinator said.
Since early April this year, the Rapid Support Forces have launched several large-scale attacks on villages west of El Fasher. For more than two weeks, the UN has been among the voices warning that the RSF have encircled the North Darfur capital and are poised to attack.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have positions inside the city, but are besieged by the RSF. So are some 800,000 residents, including hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs).
“Wounded civilians are being rushed to Al Fasher Hospital. Civilians trying to flee are trapped in fierce fighting,” Nkweta-Salami said, referring to the latest fighting.
Sudanese forces repelled the latest attack by the paramilitary group, according to media reports.
Escalating hostilities in El Fasher town are exacerbating an already perilous protection situation for civilians. Months of escalating violence around the town have already hampered the sustained flow of humanitarian aid and basic supplies, pushing people to the brink of famine.
The capacity of health facilities is severely strained. Movement restrictions on key roads are preventing people from fleeing to safer areas, forcing them to seek shelter in severely overcrowded displacement sites or open spaces.
“It is heartbreaking to see this nightmare unfolding – conflict continuing to spread engulfing large parts of the country. And again, civilians – men, women, and children, paying the highest prices – their lives. This must stop,” the Humanitarian Coordinator said.
“My plea to all parties engaged in the fighting is to uphold their international law obligations to protect civilians, and stop the fighting. The world is watching as this tragedy unfolds.”
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) recently warned that time is running out to prevent starvation in the Darfur region, as intensifying clashes in El Fasher are preventing aid deliveries to the wider Darfur region. WFP estimates that more than 1.7 million people across Darfur are experiencing emergency levels of hunger and food insecurity and are on the brink of famine.
In a social media post on Saturday, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths warned that the “flames of war in Sudan are threatening to engulf El Fasher. Reports of intensifying clashes in the city are deeply alarming.”
“The people of Darfur need more food, not more fighting. The parties must uphold their obligation to keep civilians safe and immediately de-escalate,” he said.
El Fasher is the only town in Darfur that RSF has not yet captured. An imminent battle could unleash atrocities similar to the genocide perpetrated by Arab Janjaweed fighters against African Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur, and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s. Janjaweed fighters make up the present-day RSF.
The offensive could also unleash further war crimes and crimes against humanity, such as those committed by RSF and allied militias in El Geneina in West Darfur state from April to November 2023.
In a report released on Thursday, the international rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the attacks by the RSF and its allied militias constituted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the ethnic Masalit and other non-Arab populations in and around El Geneina.
The report is based on interviews with more than 200 hundred eyewitnesses between June 2023 and April 2024. HRW researchers also reviewed and analyzed over 120 photos and videos of the events, satellite imagery, and documents provided by humanitarian organizations.
According to the HRW report, at least thousands of people have been killed in mass atrocities in the capital of Sudan's West Darfur state, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. According to a UN report, as many as 15,000 people were killed in ethnically motivated violence in El Geneina alone from April to June.
More than 500,000 refugees from West Darfur have fled to Chad since April 2023. By the end of October 2023, 75 percent were from El Geneina, HRW said.
“As the UN Security Council and governments wake up to the looming disaster in El Fasher, the large-scale atrocities committed in El Geneina should be seen as a reminder of the atrocities that could come in the absence of concerted action,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement Thursday.
“Governments, the African Union, and the United Nations need to act now to protect civilians.”
Human Rights Watch identified RSF leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as "Hemedti," his brother Abdel Raheem Hamdan Dagalo, and RSF West Darfur commander Joma'a Barakallah as those with command responsibility for the forces that committed these crimes.
The rights group also named RSF allies, including a commander of the Tamazuj armed group and two Arab tribal leaders, as bearing responsibility for fighters who carried out serious crimes.
Sudan has witnessed shocking levels of violence since fighting broke out on April 15, 2023, sparked by a power struggle between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and General Dagalo, plunging the country into a devastating humanitarian and protection crisis.
The civil war between the SAF and the RSF is being conducted with new levels of violence and brutality against civilians, particularly in the states of Darfur. The RSF in particular has been accused of mass killings and rape as a means of warfare. However, both parties to the conflict have been accused of serious war crimes.
Thousands are being ethnically targeted, killed, injured, abused and exploited, forcing more and more people to flee the violence. Gender-based violence (GBV), including sexual violence, is being used as a tool of war and is no longer concentrated in Khartoum or Darfur, but has spread to other parts of the country.
Sudan is experiencing a humanitarian emergency of epic proportions that many have called the world's largest human-made crisis, with half the population in need of life-saving assistance, tens of thousands killed and injured, and millions uprooted from their homes.
Aid agencies say the war is having catastrophic consequences for a population of nearly 49 million people - with more than 24.8 million in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance. Among those in need are more than 14 million children. In the Darfur region, more than 9 million people require humanitarian assistance.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that humanitarian needs are increasing with each passing day of conflict in Sudan.
Since April last year, more than 9 million people have been forced to flee their homes. More than 7 million people have been internally displaced within Sudan - including more than 200,000 refugees who have been displaced several times within the country since the start of the war.
More than 2 million people have fled the country. Of these, 1.8 million have crossed into Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.
In total, more than 12 million people are now displaced by conflict in Sudan, including more than 9.5 million within the country, making Sudan the largest internal displacement crisis in the world and one of the two largest displacement crises in the world, alongside the Syrian war.
Sudan could soon become the world's worst hunger crisis, with nearly 18 million people suffering from acute hunger, including 5 million on the brink of famine. Famine is expected to hit the country by 2024, particularly in the Darfur and Kordofan regions and in Khartoum and Al-Jazira states.
As the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate, the financial resources needed to meet the needs throughout Sudan and in neighboring countries are dangerously inadequate.
As of May 12, only 11 percent of the $2.6 billion needed under the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) to provide life-saving assistance to more than 18 million people inside Sudan has been received, despite donor pledges at a Paris conference in mid-April to provide more than $2 billion to support civilians inside Sudan and those who have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
Further information
Full text: Statement by the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, on the attack in Al Fasher, Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator Sudan, released May 11, 2024
https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/statement-resident-and-humanitarian-coordinator-sudan-clementine-nkweta-salami-attack-al-fasher
Full text: “The Massalit Will Not Come Home” - Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan, Human Rights Watch (HRW), report, released May 9, 2024
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2024/05/sudan0524web_0.pdf