The essentials for survival in the town which was overrun by paramilitary fighters in October have been “completely obliterated”, UN humanitarians warned on Friday. “The little that’s known at the moment about the current conditions in El Fasher is indeed beyond horrific,” said Ross Smith, Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response...
The once allied Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been locked in brutal conflict since April 2023, with the battlefront now shifting to the oil-rich region’s three states. It comes after RSF fighters seized El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, last month following a...
UN agencies say conditions are deteriorating further across North Darfur and neighbouring Kordofan, while independent human rights experts on Thursday warned that the collapse of protection following the city’s fall has sharply increased the risks facing women and children. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of El Fasher –...
That ordeal reduced people to eating peanut shells and animal feed, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Friday, before condemning the reported mass killings of civilians, executions based on ethnicity and other atrocities, which are likely continuing. At the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mr. Türk told Member...
“Women speaking to us from El Fasher, the heart of Sudan’s latest catastrophe, tell us that they’ve endured starvation…displacement, rape and bombardment,” Anna Mutavati, UN Women Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, told reporters in Geneva. “Pregnant women have given birth in the streets as the last remaining maternity...
“Today, traumatised civilians are still trapped inside El Fasher and are being prevented from leaving,” said UN human rights chief Volker Türk in a statement released on Friday. “I fear that the abominable atrocities such as summary executions, rape and ethnically motivated violence are continuing within the city.” The statement comes amid mounting reports from UN human rights watchdogs and other...
Since the powerful paramilitary group made a major incursion into the city last week, the UN human rights office has received “horrendous accounts of summary executions, mass killings, rapes, attacks against humanitarian workers, looting, abductions and forced displacement,” said Seif Magango, spokesperson for the UN human rights office (OHCHR). Speaking...
Briefing ambassadors in the Security Council, the UN’s top relief official Tom Fletcher said “women and girls are being raped, people being mutilated and killed – with utter impunity,” adding: “We cannot hear the screams, but – as we sit here today – the horror is continuing.” After overrunning the...
The World Health Organization says it’s appalled and deeply shocked by reports that 460 patients and their companions have been killed at Saudi Maternity Hospital in the city. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that prior to this latest attack, WHO has verified 285 attacks on healthcare in Sudan with at...
Senior UN refugee agency (UNHCR) official in Sudan, Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet, said there had been “significant outflow out of El Fasher into Tawila” – around 60 kilometres west of the city – which is already hosting around 650,000 displaced. New arrivals have recounted stories of widespread ethnically and politically motivated...
Tom Fletcher, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, said he was “deeply alarmed” by reports of civilian casualties and forced displacement as fierce fighting engulfs the city. “With fighters pushing further into the city and escape routes cut off, hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped and terrified – shelled, starving, and...
This follows reports that at least 53 civilians were killed and more than 60 injured by members of the Rapid Support Forces militia, the RSF, between 5 and 8 October alone. Preliminary information from the area – the last government-controlled city in North Darfur – suggests the number may be...
