AFRICA/SUDAN - El Fasher: humanitarian situation out of control

Thursday, 26 September 2024 civil war displaced persons refugees

SUDAN

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Khartoum (Agenzia Fides) - Five months of siege and fighting have worn down the population of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. The city is considered the last remaining stronghold of the Sudanese armed forces in a region (see Fides, 5/5/2024) that is now almost entirely controlled by the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo.
More than 1.5 million people are at risk in the city, which has been under siege since April-May, and in the nearby Zamzam refugee camp, 15 km south of El Fasher, where about 260,000 children live and where the humanitarian situation is increasingly deteriorating.
Soldiers from a division of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and militiamen from several local armed groups fighting the RSF have barricaded themselves in the city. A coalition of heterogeneous forces united only by their common opposition to the RSF, which has so far managed to hold out against Dagalo's forces.
Last week, the town was hit by a fierce Rapid Support Forces offensive that was narrowly repelled, with heavy casualties on both sides, as shown by satellite photos showing recently dug mounds of earth likely to indicate the creation of mass graves.
Faced with the deteriorating humanitarian situation in El Fasher, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (a body set up in 1987 by the then African Union Organization, now the African Union) has issued a call for a cessation of fighting. "The African Commission condemns in the strongest terms the atrocities being committed against the civilian population in the context of the ongoing fighting in El Fasher, which seriously endanger the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have found refuge in the town," it said in a statement on September 21. "The African Commission on Human Rights urges the parties to the conflict to cease all acts of violence against civilians and to fully respect the principles of discrimination, necessity and proportionality under international humanitarian law."
The "Forum of International Non-Governmental Organizations in Sudan" (Sudan INGO Forum) has, for its part, appealed to the international community at the UN General Assembly to intervene to end the conflict in Sudan that broke out in April 2023. "Sudan is experiencing a man-made food crisis of historic proportions, largely caused by the actions and decisions of the parties to the conflict in violation of international humanitarian law," the non-governmental organizations said. "As of August 2024, more than 25 million people in Sudan are at risk of acute food insecurity and at least 755,000 people could die of catastrophic famine in the coming months if the international community does not act urgently and decisively," it said.
More than 10 million people have fled their homes since the conflict began in April 2023, making Sudan the world's largest internal displacement crisis, affecting more than 5 million children and over 2 million people who have fled across borders to neighboring countries. Some health facilities report five child deaths per day. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 26/9/2024)