Aid organizations operating in Sudan’s Darfur region are grappling with a dire situation after four days of intense clashes in El Fasher.
According to Claire Nicolet, the head of emergency response at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the fighting between the army and a rival paramilitary group has resulted in significant civilian casualties.
Nicolet described the clashes as dramatic and noted the severe challenges in delivering essential supplies to the city and surrounding camps.
She highlighted the critical issue of supply shortages, particularly food, which has led to skyrocketing prices. Given the ongoing conflict, transporting goods has become increasingly difficult.
Nicolet warned that if the violence persists, malnutrition rates could reach unprecedented levels, affecting up to two to three million people.
The already dire nutrition situation is expected to worsen significantly if the current conflict continues, potentially resulting in a substantial loss of life.
Darfur governor and former rebel leader Minni Arko Minnawi has once again called on civilians in the region to take up arms for self-defense, citing the necessity of the current situation according to Al Arabiya.
He claims that his administration is actively working to mediate between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the army to halt the ongoing conflict in Darfur, which has persisted for four months.
These repeated statements from Mr. Minnawi have raised concerns about the potential escalation of ethnic tensions and the risk of Darfur plunging into a full-fledged civil war.
Additionally, other parts of Sudan, including the capital Khartoum, have reported intense fighting between the army and the RSF.
Eyewitnesses in Khartoum said the army carried out the “heaviest” airstrikes so far against RSF positions in several areas.
The army said it killed 18 RSF fighters in clashes in Omdurman and Khartoum.
Renewed clashes were also reported in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, after a lull in fighting.
The fighting has persisted despite continuing indirect talks between the army and RSF representatives in theSaudi city of Jeddah.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has initiated a fresh investigation into the reported war crimes occurring in Sudan’s Darfur region.
The conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has led to a surge in ethnic violence.
Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the ICC, disclosed that the investigations would encompass various atrocities, including attacks on civilians, mass sexual assaults, and the destruction of homes and markets.
This inquiry will be carried out under the existing mandate for Darfur, which dates back to 2005.
The previous investigation conducted under this mandate resulted in genocide charges being brought against former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
The renewed investigation seeks to address ongoing allegations of war crimes in the region.
The bodies of dozens of persons who were allegedly slain by militias affiliated with Sudanese paramilitary groups have been discovered in a mass grave in West Darfur, according to a statement from the UN on Thursday.
The bodies of the 87 persons, some of whom are members of the Masalit tribe of ethnic Africans, were allegedly thrown in a one-meter (about three-foot) grave just outside the West Darfur city of Geneina, according to “credible information” acquired by the U.N. Human Rights Office.
According to a statement from the United Nations agency in Geneva, the first 37 dead were buried on June 20.
The next day, another 50 bodies were dumped at the same site. Seven women and seven children were among those buried.
Darfur has been at the epicenter of the 12-week conflict, morphing into ethnic violence with RSF troops and allied Arab militias attacking African ethnic groups.
News of the mass grave comes just days after Human Rights Watch called for the International Criminal Court to investigate atrocities in Darfur.
The governor of North Darfur state in Sudan has expressed the success of a mediation team established in the city, as they have effectively facilitated a ceasefire among the warring parties and have started providing essential services.
Nimir Abdel Rahman, in an interview with Sudan Lifeline radio station, stated that although occasional violations have occurred in the state, all parties involved are now fully committed to the ceasefire and are determined to avoid any resumption of hostilities.
Collaborating with the state government, the Mediation and Elders Committee has begun the provision of basic services such as water, electricity, and healthcare. Additionally, public markets have been reopened under the protection of joint security forces.
Efforts are underway to ensure the arrival of medical missions and the arrangements for providing food and shelter to civilians are being made.
As part of an agreement between the elders’ committee and the warring forces, all humanitarian convoys traveling from the eastern state of the White Nile through North Kordofan, North Darfur, and other Sudanese states will receive protection.
However, the governor acknowledges that there are no guarantees regarding the forces’ compliance with the agreement, highlighting the ongoing challenges in maintaining the agreed-upon terms.
“The only guarantee we have is their respect for citizens, public utilities and the state institutions, which will be all destroyed if the fighting is resumed. Only civilians will be harmed in case the fighting is resumed.”
Amid a deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s West Darfur state, an increasing number of individuals are fleeing and seeking refuge in Chad.
Thousands of people are pouring into Chad, escaping the escalating violence. Recognizing the urgent need for aid, a United Nations official is striving to gain access to the war-torn region to deliver critical medical supplies, food aid, and other essential assistance to alleviate the suffering caused by the conflict.
“Darfur is an area we have not been able to access and there is significant fighting [there],” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
“We need to be able to bring in staff. We need to be able to get agreements so that we can move along the routes [and] our trucks that are presently in parts of the country can make their way to Darfur,” she said, calling for a security agreement for the safe movement of aid.
In the two months since the Darfur city of el-Geneina has been under siege, Adam Mohd Yousef has lost 22 members of his family – 15 of them children.
“The Sudanese government didn’t help us. They see what is happening and just watch us burn,” he told Al Jazeera, bursting into tears.
Yousef is among the thousands of Sudanese refugees crossing into Chad to escape violence in the continuing war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with the situation in Darfur particularly catastrophic according to humanitarian groups and international actors.
“The UNHCR is here assessing the situation and they say it has never – in the past two months of war – ever, been this bad, certainly not at this border check post in Adre,” said Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, from the Chadian city on the border with Sudan.
The UNCHR says there is not enough international interest in the crisis and that they are underfunded, Basravi said.
At least 1,000 people have been killed in el-Geneina in particular, where there have been new waves of attacks by Arab nomadic tribes with ties to the RSF. The fighting has also sent more than 270,000 refugees across the border to Chad.
The refugees at the Adre checkpoint told Al Jazeera their city of el-Geneina no longer exists, as thousands turn up each day to the border crossing, tired, desperate, and in fear for their lives and future. Many of those crossing are also unaccompanied children who are picked up by strangers along the way.
“I don’t know where my children are. I had to leave them behind,” a sobbing woman told Al Jazeera, before falling down in exhaustion.
While UN agencies like the World Food Programme (WFP) have been able to get aid in other fighting strongholds like the capital, Khartoum, they have been unable to provide relief in Darfur.
On Thursday, the United States and UN said the situation there could herald a repeat of past mass atrocities.
Events in the region are “an ominous reminder of the horrific events that led the United States to determine in 2004 that genocide had been committed in Darfur,” the US State Department said in a statement.
“Darfur is rapidly spiraling into a humanitarian calamity. The world cannot allow this to happen. Not again,” UN aid chief Martin Griffiths also said in a statement.
On Wednesday, the killing of West Darfur state Governor Khamis Abakar after he publicly blamed the deaths of civilians on the RSF marked a new escalation in the conflict.
Authorities in Sudan claim that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) assassinated the governor of the West Darfur province.eople
Only hours earlier, Khamis Abbakar had accused both the RSF and allied militias of committing genocide against people from the Masalit ethnic group.
Mr Abbakar, who was killed in El Geneina, had warned that the attacks had spread across the city and called for international intervention.
The RSF has not commented on the allegation.
There has been similar violence in the cities of Nyala and Zalingei.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said he’s appalled by the escalating ethnic and sexual dimension of the violence against civilians in Darfur.
The region has seen periods of conflict since the early 2000s when millions were displaced and hundreds of thousands killed after Arab militias were deployed to fight non-Arab rebels.
