UN Warns of Imminent Risk to Hundreds of Thousands in Sudan’s El-Fasher Amid Escalating Conflict
Senior United Nations officials issued a grave warning on Wednesday about the escalating risk to hundreds of thousands of lives in the besieged Sudanese town of El-Fasher. As the fighting threatens to intensify, El-Fasher, one of five state capitals in Sudan’s western Darfur region, remains the only one not under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been in conflict with the regular army since April 2023. The UN has highlighted that the ongoing conflict has created the world’s largest displacement crisis, with millions displaced and famine emerging at a nearby displacement camp.
Martha Pobee, the UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, informed the UN Security Council that the war has placed civilians in El-Fasher at significant risk. She emphasized that the violence is further exacerbating the vulnerability of the population, including internally displaced persons living in large camps around the town. The conflict has also severely impacted health care facilities, deepening the crisis.
The situation in Darfur has witnessed some of the conflict’s worst atrocities, with the RSF laying siege to El-Fasher since May. The war has already resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, with estimates reaching up to 150,000. Joyce Msuya, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, reported that civilians, particularly women and children, are bearing the brunt of the violence. She noted that civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and displacement camps, has been hit, placing the lives of over 700,000 internally displaced people in and around El-Fasher in immediate danger.
Msuya expressed growing concern over reports of intense shelling and the deployment of additional forces in El-Fasher as the rainy season nears its end. Close to 1.7 million people in North Darfur are facing acute food insecurity. Independent UN experts have called for the swift deployment of an “impartial force” to protect civilians and address the escalating crisis.
