Thousands of civilians are feared trapped and in imminent danger in the Sudanese town of El-Fasher after it fell to paramilitaries, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on 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 took El-Fasher on Sunday, driving the army from its last stronghold in Darfur after a grueling 18-month siege marked by starvation and bombing.
Since the fall of the city, reports have emerged of summary executions, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and kidnappings, while communications remain largely cut off.
El-Fasher survivors who reached the nearby town of Tawila have told AFP of mass killings, children shot in front of their parents and civilians beaten and robbed while fleeing.
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 final RSF assault.
“Large numbers of people remain in serious danger and are being prevented from reaching safer areas by Rapid Support Forces and their allies,” MSF said.
The NGO added that only 5,000 people managed to reach Tawila, about 70 kilometers to the west.
The number of people arriving in Tawila “does not add up, while accounts of large-scale atrocities increase,” says MSF emergency chief 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 answer, although terrifying, is that they are being killed, blocked and chased when they try to flee.”
“Mass killings continue”
Several witnesses told MSF that a group of 500 civilians, along with soldiers from the army and the army’s allied Joint Forces, had tried to flee on Sunday, but most were killed or captured by the RSF and its allies.
Survivors reported that people were separated by gender, age or presumed ethnicity, and that many were still being held for ransom.
Hayat, a mother of five who fled the city, previously said AFP that “the young people who were traveling with us were detained” along the way by paramilitaries and “we don’t know what happened to them.”
The UN said on Friday that the death toll from the RSF attack on the city could be in the hundreds, while army allies accused the paramilitary group of killing more than 2,000 civilians.
Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Laboratory suggested on Friday that mass killings in and around El-Fasher were likely continuing.
The lab, which uses satellite imagery and open-source information to document human rights abuses during wars, said Friday’s new images showed “no large-scale movement” of civilians fleeing the city, giving them reason to believe that much of the population could be “dead, captured or in hiding.”
The lab identified at least 31 groups of objects consistent with human bodies between Sunday and Friday, in neighborhoods, university grounds and military sites.
“The indicators that mass killings are continuing are clearly visible,” the lab said.
“Really horrible”
At a conference in Bahrain today, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Sudan was “an absolutely apocalyptic situation, the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world.”
He added that the RSF had “pledged to protect civilians and will be held accountable for these actions.”
At the same event, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper also described the reported abuses as “truly horrifying.”
“Atrocities, mass executions, famine and the devastating use of rape as a weapon of war, while women and children bear the brunt of the greatest humanitarian crisis of the 21st century,” she said.
The UK announced £5 million ($6.57 million) of new funding for Sudan.
“For too long this terrible conflict has been neglected, while suffering has simply increased,” Cooper said.
The emergency funding, which comes on top of the £120m the UK has pledged to Sudan over a year, will include £2m to support survivors of sexual violence in El-Fasher.
“UK diplomats continue to press all parties to cease hostilities to protect civilians and allow unimpeded humanitarian access,” the Foreign Office said in a press release.
The RSF said on Thursday it had arrested several fighters accused of abuses during the capture of El-Fasher, but UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher questioned the group’s commitment to investigating the atrocities.
Both the RSF (descendants of the Janjaweed militias accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago) and the army have faced accusations of war crimes over the course of the conflict.
The United States has previously determined that RSF committed genocide in Darfur.
The RSF has received weapons and drones from the United Arab Emirates, according to UN reports, although Abu Dhabi has denied giving support to the paramilitary group.
Meanwhile, the army has enjoyed support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkiye.
The capture of El-Fasher gives the RSF full control over Darfur’s five state capitals, effectively dividing Sudan along an east-west axis, while the army controls the north, east and center.
UN officials have warned that violence is now spreading to the neighboring region of Kordofan, and reports have emerged of “large-scale atrocities perpetrated” by the RSF.
The broader conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million, and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.
