Hundreds Flee El-Fasher, Arrive in Northern Sudan in Harsh Conditions
At least 642 people fleeing violence in El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State in western Sudan, have arrived in Sudan’s Northern State after a “difficult and dangerous journey,” a local medical group said Saturday.
The displaced families escaped “massacres” carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in El-Fasher and arrived in the Al-Dabba area, the Sudan Doctors Network said in a post on X.
It warned that the new arrivals are living in “dire humanitarian conditions,” with inadequate shelter, severe shortages of food and clean water, and a lack of basic health services, particularly affecting children, women, and the elderly.
“These families are now facing severe living challenges that exceed the capacity of the host communities to cope with,” the network said, warning that the number of displaced is expected to rise sharply in the coming days as the deterioration of the situation in Darfur continues.
It called on local authorities and humanitarian groups “inside and outside Sudan” to urgently provide medical aid, food, shelter, and psychological support to prevent “a total collapse of the humanitarian situation.”
On Friday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said more than 62,000 people have been displaced from El-Fasher within four days after the RSF took control of the city.
Additionally, the U.N. human rights office said hundreds of Sudanese civilians may have been killed during the RSF’s capture of the long-besieged Al-Fashir.
“We estimate the death toll of civilians and those placed hors de combat during the RSF attack on the city and its exit routes, as well as in the days after the takeover, could amount to hundreds,” U.N. human rights office spokesperson Seif Magango told a Geneva press briefing on Friday, describing testimonies of summary executions and mass killings.
“Witnesses confirm RSF personnel selected women and girls and raped them at gunpoint, forcing the remaining displaced persons – around 100 families – to leave the location amid shooting and intimidation of older residents,” he told reporters.
The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, said the abuses in al-Fashir were indefensible.
“Lives in Sudan now depend on strong and decisive action to stop these atrocities,” she said in a statement.
