Key Points
- At least 782 civilians killed, 1,143 injured in El Fasher siege.
- El-Fasher has been under RSF siege since May.
- Both the army and the RSF have been accused of targeting civilians.
GENEVA: At least 782 civilians have been killed and 1,143 injured in a months-long paramilitary siege of El Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur, a United Nations report said on Friday.
“The continuing siege of El Fasher and the relentless fighting are devastating lives everyday on a massive scale,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
“This alarming situation cannot continue. The Rapid Support Forces must end this horrible siege. And I urge all parties to the conflict to stop attacks on civilians and civilian objects. I call on them to comply with their obligations and commitments under international law,” he said in the statement.
Since April last year, Sudan has been facing a brutal conflict between the army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and home to two million people, has seen some of the war’s fiercest fighting as the army battles the RSF to retain its last foothold in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
The UN Human Rights Office report, based on interviews with 52 individuals who fled El-Fasher, said that the RSF had been regularly shelling densely populated areas since May, while the army has carried out air strikes and artillery bombardments. The city has faced intense attacks over the past week.
Last Friday, paramilitary shelling on the city’s main hospital killed nine people and injured 20, the head of the World Health Organization said. A paramilitary drone attack also killed at least 38 people in the city centre on Sunday.
According to the report, during a major escalation in fighting in June, parties engaged in heavy exchanges of fire in civilian areas killing dozens of civilians. They also used homes for military purposes and attacked and looted markets.
“Victims died inside their houses, in markets, in the vicinity of hospitals and in the streets,” says the report. In one neighbourhood, Al-Thawra Janoub, it says, “residents were unable to collect the bodies of those who died in the streets for days, due to the continuous shelling and heavy exchanges of fire.”
Nearly all of Darfur is now under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), while the Sudanese army maintains control over parts of the north and east of the country.
The ongoing conflict in Sudan has claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced over 11 million people, and placed 26 million at risk of starvation.
Both the RSF and the army have faced accusations of indiscriminately targeting medical facilities and civilians, as well as deliberately attacking residential areas.
“Any large-scale attack on Zamzam camp and El Fasher city will catapult civilian suffering to catastrophic levels, deepening the already dire humanitarian situation, including famine conditions,” said Türk.
“All efforts must be taken, including by the international community, to prevent such an attack and to halt the siege.”
The UN Human Rights Chief also called on all parties to the conflict to embrace mediation efforts in good faith, with a view to the immediate cessation of hostilities.
