Thousands flee to overcrowded camps after Sudan’s paramilitary captures el-Fasher

CAIRO (AP) – Tens of thousands of Sudanese have fled to overcrowded camps to escape reported atrocities by a paramilitary force since it captured el-Fasher in the western Darfur region, an aid group said Saturday, and the U.N. human rights chief warned that many others are still trapped.

Those who reach shelter in Tawila, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from el-Fasher, find themselves stranded in a barren area with barely enough tents, many of them improvised from patched tarps and sheets, according to a video posted by the group Sudan’s IDPs and Refugee Camps. It shows children running across the area as a few adults carry a large pot of food, hoping it will be enough to feed the growing crowds of displaced.

Since the Rapid Support Forces seized el-Fasher from the rival military Oct. 26, more than 16,200 people have fled to the camps in Tawila, said Adam Rojal, spokesperson for the aid group. The International Organization for Migration estimates that around 82,000 people had fled the city and surrounding areas as of Nov. 4, heading to safe spots including Tawila, an area already overcrowded with the displaced from previous attacks, with some making the journey on foot.

The RSF and the Sudanese army have been at war since April 2023, following simmering tensions over control of Africa’s third-largest nation. At least 40,000 people have been killed, according to the World Health Organization, though the actual toll might be many times higher. Some 12 million people have been displaced, and nearly half the population are facing acute food insecurity.

Last week, the RSF seized el-Fasher after an 18-month siege. The paramilitary rampaged through the Saudi Hospital in the city, killing over 450 people, according to the WHO, and went house to house, killing civilians and committing sexual assaults. The RSF has denied killing anyone at the Saudi hospital, but testimonies from those fleeing, online videos and satellite images offer an apocalyptic vision of the attack.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders said Friday that 300 people arrived in Tawila on Thursday alone after fleeing el-Fasher. MSF teams reported “extremely high levels of malnutrition among children and adults.”

The displaced in Tawila are in urgent need of food, medicine, shelter materials and psychosocial support, Rojal told The Associated Press. He said that families often survive on just two meals a day – and sometimes only one.

U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk warned that those left behind in el-Fasher are at risk.

“Today, traumatized civilians are still trapped inside el-Fasher and are being prevented from leaving,” he said Friday in Geneva.

“I fear that the abominable atrocities such as summary executions, rape and ethnically motivated violence are continuing within the city,” he added. “And for those who manage to flee, the violence does not end, as the exit routes themselves have been the scenes of unimaginable cruelty.”

On Thursday, the RSF said it has agreed to a humanitarian truce proposed by a U.S.-led mediator group known as the Quad. Meanwhile, the army said it welcomes the Quad’s proposal, but will only agree to it if RSF withdraw from civilian areas and give up their weapons.

The fighting has spread across Darfur and to the neighboring Kordofan region, with both emerging as the epicenter of Sudan’s war over the past months. Early this week, a drone attack in el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan province, killed at least 40 people and wounded dozens more.

A military official told the AP on Saturday that the army intercepted two Chinese-made drones that targeted el-Obeid on Saturday morning. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

Jalale Getachew Birru, an analyst for East Africa with Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, said in a statement Friday that the fall of el-Fasher and rising violence in North Kordofan mark a strategic victory for the RSF, but exacerbate human suffering. He estimated that at least 2,000 people were killed across Sudan in a single week between Oct. 26 and Nov. 1.

“These events not only deepen Sudan’s humanitarian crisis but also signal the RSF’s growing capacity to expand toward central Sudan, threatening to reverse the success of the Sudanese armed forces and returning the violence to the relatively calm central Sudan,” said Birru.