Sudan: Atrocities in El Fasher show ‘total disregard for human life'

By Linda Bordoni

Two and a half years after the eruption of civil war in Sudan, triggered by a power struggle between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, an estimated 150,000 people have been killed and more than 12 million displaced.

The past week, the city of El Fasher in the Darfur region to Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militias are reportedly committing atrocities against civilians.

UN officials trying to provide basic necessities to terrified and hungry Sudanese civilians fleeing violence have received horrendous accounts of these atrocities.

Denise Brown, the UN’s head of humanitarian operations in Sudan, said that RSF militia in and around the city of El Fasher they have just conquered, shows total disregard for the protection and rights of civilians:

“When the fighting intensified, we began to receive credible reports of summary executions of non-armed civilians – particularly men lying on the ground being shot – we also have received credible reports of summary executions of civilians as they try and flee the fighting (…). We also received reports, which we have not yet been able to confirm, of mass killings (…). We believe that the RSF has tightened the cord around that city, and people are actually not being allowed to leave. So, the situation is very bad.”

The UN, Brown says, estimates the death toll of civilians during the RSF attack on the city and its exit routes, as well as in the days after the takeover, could amount to hundreds, while witnesses report the killing of sick and wounded individuals inside Al-Saudi Maternity Hospital and in venues which were temporarily serving as medical centres.

Alarming reports of girls and women being raped at gunpoint are rife, as is the shooting and intimidation of older residents.

Meanwhile, telecommunications are cut, and the situation is chaotic on the ground, making it difficult to obtain direct information from inside the city.

What is undeniable is the continuing suffering of the people of Sudan amid the deafening silence of the international community.