Thousands feared ‘in grave danger’ in Sudan’s El-Fasher after fall to RSF

PORT SUDAN, (Sudan): Thousands of civilians are feared trapped and in imminent danger in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher after its fall to paramilitaries, Doctors Without Borders said Saturday, as Germany’s top diplomat described the situation there as “apocalyptic”.

At war with the regular army since April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces seized El-Fasher on Sunday, pushing the military out of its last stronghold in Darfur after a grinding 18-month siege marked by starvation and bombardment.

Since the city’s fall, reports have emerged of summary executions, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions, while communications remain largely cut off.

Survivors from El-Fasher who reached the nearby town of Tawila have told AFP of mass killings, children shot before their parents, and civilians beaten and robbed as they fled.

The UN says more than 65,000 people have fled El-Fasher since Sunday but tens of thousands remain trapped. Around 260,000 people were in the city before the RSF’s final assault.

“Large numbers of people remain in grave danger and are being prevented by the Rapid Support Forces and its allies from reaching safer areas,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said.

The NGO added that only 5,000 people had managed to make their way to Tawila, about 70 kilometres to the west.

The numbers of people arriving in Tawila “don’t add up, while accounts of large-scale atrocities are mounting”, said MSF head of emergencies Michel Olivier Lacharite.

“Where are all the missing people who have already survived months of famine and violence in El-Fasher?” he added.

“The most likely, albeit frightening, answer is that they are being killed, blocked, and hunted down when trying to flee.”

Several eyewitnesses told MSF that a group of 500 civilians, along with soldiers from the military and the army-allied Joint Forces, had attempted to flee on Sunday, but most were killed or captured by the RSF and their allies.

Survivors reported that people were separated based on their gender, age or presumed ethnicity, and that many were still being held for ransom. Hayat, a mother of five who fled the city, previously told AFP that “young men travelling with us were stopped” along the way by paramilitaries and “we don’t know what happened to them”.

The UN said Friday the death toll from the RSF’s assault on the city may be in the hundreds, while army allies accused the paramilitary group of killing over 2,000 civilians.

Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab suggested on Friday that mass killings were likely continuing in and around El-Fasher.