UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday of a “terrible escalation” of violence in al-Fashar in the Darfur region, as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighting the Sudanese army say they have taken full control of the town.
The reported seizure of al-Fashar, the last major city in the region still under government control, is being seen as a potential turning point in Sudan’s civil war, which is expected to last through April 2023.
What do we know about the situation in al-Fashar?
According to UN estimates, about 300,000 people are living in dire conditions in El-Fashar, which has been cut off for more than a year.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Sunday that the ongoing fighting had worsened an already desperate situation.
“As fighters advance into the city and block escape routes, hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped and terrified – under fire, starving and without access to food, health care or protection,” said UN emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher.
Fletcher said he was “deeply concerned by reports of civilian casualties and forced displacement,” and called for an “immediate ceasefire in al-Fashr, Darfur and across Sudan.”
He said, “Civilians must be allowed safe passage and able to seek aid. Those fleeing to safe areas must be allowed to do so safely and respectfully. Those who stay – including local responders – must be protected. Attacks on civilians, hospitals and humanitarian operations must stop immediately.”
Guterres says foreign artists must stop promoting conflict
At a news conference in Malaysia, Guterres said the seizure of al-Fashar “represents a terrible escalation in the conflict,” adding that “the suffering we are seeing in Sudan is unbearable.”
Guterres further said that the involvement of outside forces has made the conflict worse.
“It is time for the international community to clearly tell all those countries that are intervening in this war, and those that are providing arms to the parties to the war, to stop doing so,” he said.
“It is clear that…this is not just a Sudanese problem, with the army and the Rapid Support Force fighting each other,” he said. “We have more and more external interference, which undermines the possibility of a ceasefire and a political solution.”
Huge humanitarian crisis in Sudan
The United Nations has described the civil war in Sudan as causing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with more than 12 million people displaced and 24.6 million suffering from severe hunger.
The civil war has its roots in a power dispute between the country’s de facto ruler, Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, which erupted into violence in April 2023.
Both sides have been accused of serious human rights violations.
Darfur already faced a major humanitarian crisis in the early 2000s, when dictator Omar al-Bashir responded to the insurgency by employing Janjaweed militias to attack non-Arab communities in the region.
Some prominent RSF leaders were members of the Janjaweed, who were notorious for attacking villages on camels at dawn and massacring their inhabitants.
Edited by: Kieran Burke