Sudan: Over 1000 people flee El-Fasher in two days

Over a two-day period, 1,070 people have fled the Sudanese city of El-Fasher due to deteriorating conditions, according to the Middle East Monitor via Anadolu on October 21st.

These figures come from the UN-backed International Organisation for Migration (IOM), and the report counted the number of people who left the city between October 19th and 20th.

El-Fasher is the state capital of Sudan’s North Darfur region, and has been under siege by the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group since May 2024. Sudan has been in a civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese military since April 2023.

The city’s inhabitants face intensifying drone strikes that target displaced person shelters, clinics and mosques; residents are forced to seek refuge from the attacks in underground bunkers.

Thousands have been forced to flee from the city, often to impoverished settlements where food, water and medical care are either limited or non-existent. The Abu Shouk camp in North Darfur, which shelters more than 190,000 people, has been targeted by artillery fire and drone strikes.

Clashes between the Sudanese military and the RSF have also forced the humanitarian aid groups to suspend aid distribution throughout the conflict, despite the population being in desperate need of food and nutrition.

The “repeated and deliberate” attacks on civilians were condemned by the UN on October 12th, after a series of drone strikes killed at least 110 people in the city’s Daraja Oula neighbourhood between October 10th and 11th.

13 million people have been displaced by the conflict, while at least 24,000 people are estimated to have been killed. Out of the country’s 50 million inhabitants, 26 million are facing hunger due to food shortages.

Community kitchens, which were responsible for feeding 3000 people, were forced to close on October 5th as food supplies ran out. The RSF has blocked all humanitarian corridors leading to El-Fasher, plunging the population further into starvation.

Attacks on hospitals have forced 90% of the country’s hospitals to close at various points since April 2023; the Sudan Doctors Network believe that 233 medical personnel have been killed since the conflict began.

The city was described as a “literal kill box” by researchers at Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), who revealed on August 28th that the RSF had constructed walls around El-Fasher, essentially locking all residents into the besieged city and making escape difficult.

On June 23rd, a UN official warned that the risk of genocide in Sudan was “very high,” as the RSF has been accused of perpetrating ethnically-motivated attacks against the Zaghawa, Masalit and Fur groups.

Middle East Monitor via Anadolu, Maghrebi.org