Fighting has intensified in western Sudan. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed serious concern over the deteriorating situation in and around the town of El-Fasher in North Darfur.
A spokesman for the UN human rights chief briefed reporters on Friday (26 April).
“Reports indicate that both sides have launched indiscriminate attacks using long-range explosive weapons, such as mortar shells and rockets fired from fighter jets, in residential areas,” X Magango said.
“At least 43 people, including women and children, have been killed in fighting between the SAF and the RSF – backed by their respective allied militias – since the RSF launched an assault on El-Fasher on April 14.
In an interview from Nairobi, Magango said Commissioner Volker Türk called for “immediate de-escalation and an end to the conflict”.
Türk also calls on both parties to the conflict and their allies to allow civilians safe passage to other areas, ensure the protection of civilians and civilian objects, and facilitate safe and unrestricted humanitarian access.
Ethnically motivated violence
The specter of ethnically motivated violence still lurks.
“Since the beginning of April, the RSF has carried out several large-scale attacks on villages in the western part of El-Fasher, mostly inhabited by the African Zaghawa ethnic community,” the spokesman revealed.
Some of the villages, including Durma, Umoshosh, Sarafaya and Ozbani were burned by the RSF.
Last year's fighting and attacks between Rizeigat and Africa's Masalit in West Darfur left hundreds of civilians dead or injured and thousands displaced from their homes.
The civilians who did not escape from El-Fasher are still living in unbearable suffering: “(they are) trapped in the town, the only one in Darfur still in the hands of the SAF, and they fear that they will be killed if they try to escape. “
“This dire situation is exacerbated by the severe lack of essential supplies, as the supply of commercial goods and humanitarian aid has been severely restricted by the fighting and delivery trucks cannot freely pass through RSF-controlled territory,” Magango added.
Local media Sudan Tribune reported that Minni Minnawi, the governor of Darfur state, who leads a militia that supports the national army, accused the RSF of trying to establish an unrecognized entity in the region.
