For a little over a year, and the start of the war between the regular army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the Rapid Support Forces of General Hemmedti, El Fasher, the largest city in Darfur, remained in the hands of the regular army. But General Hemmedti’s forces have been besieging the city for several weeks and heavy weapons fire has been reported. The United Nations is more worried than ever.
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Fears are ever more acute Sudan, in Darfur in the west of the country. The Darfur provinces are largely controlled by the FSR paramilitaries of the General Hemmedti. If the largest city in Darfur, El Fasher, remains in the hands of the army of General Burhan and his allies for weeks, the FSR besiege the city, capital of North Darfur province. There are skirmishes. The RSF razed villages, and the army responded by bombing areas where civilians lived.
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Heavy weapon fire
Calls to end the siege have increased in recent weeks but this Sunday, the UN seems more worried than ever. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he is “very concerned”.
I’m very concerned about the ongoing war in Sudan.
Ultimately, we know there is no military solution to this conflict.
We need an urgent ceasefire and a coordinated international effort to deliver a political process that can get the country back on track.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 11, 2024
His deputy for Humanitarian Affairs is also alarmed on the social network X: Martin Griffiths speaks of an ongoing intensification of the fighting around El Fasher. But it is his envoy to Sudan who is the most precise. Cameroonian Clémentine Nkweta-Salami details “ heavy weapon fire. Attacks in densely populated areas in and around El Fasher “. They do ” many victims “, said the UN official. “ Wounded civilians are rushed to El Fasher hospital” while others “trying to flee are trapped in intense fighting “.
The flames of war in #Sudan are threatening to engulf El Fasher. Reports of intensifying clashes in the city are deeply alarming.
The people of Darfur need more food, not more fighting. The parties must uphold their obligation to keep civilians safe and immediately de-escalate.
— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) May 10, 2024
Clémentine Nkweta-Salami calls “ all parties to spare the city » where between 800,000 and two million people live – sources differ because El Fasher has welcomed in recent months many internally displaced people fleeing the fighting and ethnic abuses which are devastating all of the provinces of Darfur.
Already at the end of April the UN Security Council had called on General Hemetti’s RSF to end the siege of the capital of North Darfur. At the time, the American ambassador to the United Nations affirmed that the city was “ on the verge of a large-scale massacre “.
In El Fasher, many of the internally displaced people are non-Arab populations. The FSR militiamen are recruited en masse from Arab tribes. Many experts and activists from Sudanese civil society express in this context their strong fear of a new bloodbath, particularly in view of what took place last year in El Geneina, a much smaller town. , capital of West Darfur.
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According to the UN, between 10,000 and 15,000 Massalit were massacred in June 2023, in the city and on the routes of their flight to nearby Chad, barely 10 kilometers away. But Chad is far from El Fasher and all the roads are blocked by the FSR, hence the immense concern this Sunday. It must be emphasized, however, that we do not know whether this intensification of fighting is the beginning or not of this large-scale offensive on the city.