Sudanese human rights group says at least 25 people dead in RSF attacks on El-Fasher – JURIST

At least 25 people were reportedly killed and dozens injured in an attack by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on the town of El-Fasher in western Darfur on Saturday, local pro-democracy activists of the El-Fasher Resistance Committee said on Facebook.

In their report, the resistance committees accused the militia of “indiscriminately shelling the neighborhoods with heavy artillery.” photos The resistance committees claimed that the RSF deliberately dropped grenades on civilians in the area, although they had targeted homes, hospitals and markets. The RSF denied carrying out the attack and declined further comment.

The director general of the Ministry of Health of North Darfur State also confirmed to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua that more than 25 people were killed and more than 50 others injured in the RSF attack.

The surge in violence comes amid a weeks-long standoff in El-Fasher, the last remaining stronghold of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in the Darfur region and a key front in the civil war with the RSF that has plunged Sudan into one of the world’s worst slave economies. humanitarian crises since fighting broke out in April 2023.

In May of this year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also warned of a possible “humanitarian catastrophe” that the escalating violence in the city could bring. Türk then called on commanders on both sides to urgently cease hostilities and resume ceasefire negotiations. He stressed that the city of El-Fasher has a high population density of 1.8 million residents and internally displaced people who are also at imminent risk of famine.

Since the conflict began last year, several reports and articles have been published highlighting the plight of Sudanese civilians caught in the midst of the violence. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that over 10 million Sudanese have been displaced from their homes as a result of the conflict and have crossed borders to neighboring countries such as South Sudan and Egypt to escape the violence. Several organizations have also Caution about the extreme risk of famine if the factions stop fighting or allow “unhindered humanitarian access.”

Violence first broken out between the (para)military factions due to a power struggle between the SAF leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and RSF figurehead Mohammed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo. Both leaders and several officials agreed to integrate the RSF into the SAF to create a single, consolidated army. However, tensions quickly arose over how this integration should be done and – more importantly – who would take over the leadership of the single military unit.