El Fasher…Complex Conditions, Anticipation and Terror

Sudan Events – Report

Residents of the city of El Fasher are living in intense terror with the outbreak of fighting in the city over the past days between the army and its allies in the armed movements on the one hand, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied militias on the other hand. The battles take place in extremely complex humanitarian circumstances, made worse by the recent battles. Since the outbreak of battles last April, El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the largest city in the region, has hosted hundreds of thousands from other Darfur capitals, cities and villages, and has formed a safe haven despite the siege.
The last months of October and November witnessed a shift in the extent and nature of the war battles, with the RSF taking control of the army’s military garrisons in four states out of five that geographically comprise the Darfur region (Nyala/South Darfur, Zalingei/Central Darfur, El Geneina/West Darfur) and (Al Daein/East Darfur), whether through small battles or a quick withdrawal of the army forces stationed in the garrisons. The forces then announced that their next target was the capital of the El Fasher region.
Getting out of neutrality
On Thursday, November 16, 2023, the armed movements that signed the Juba Peace Agreement announced their departure from their position of neutrality and their support of the army in its war with the RSF. This came in a press conference held in the administrative capital, Port Sudan, and attended by Arko Minawi, Leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Army and governor of the Darfur region, Jibriel Ibrahim; President of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Minister of Finance, Mustafa Tambour; Leader of one of the factions of the Darfur Liberation Movement, and Salah Al-Wali of the Sudan Liberation Forces group led by Al-Tahir Hajar; Former member of the Sovereign Council.
According to the Juba Agreement, a security force of 12,000 people should have been formed in Darfur: 6,000 from the Sudanese Armed Forces, the General Intelligence Service and the RSF, and 6,000 from the movements that signed the Juba Agreement, namely the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) led by Jibriel, and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Minawi, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Transitional Council led by Al-Hadi Idris, the Sudan Liberation Forces Movement led by Al-Tahir Hajar, and the Sudanese Alliance. With the army, hesitant, joint training did not begin until January 2022, and did not continue. In September 2022, Nyala witnessed the graduation of two thousand members of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front forces as part of the joint force of armed struggle movements.
Relative safety
El Fasher was not immune to the war, even with the parties’ declared intention to keep it in relative safety. A few hours after the outbreak of fighting in Khartoum last year, the sound of bullets and artillery shook the ears of the city’s residents in the middle of the afternoon of the first day of the war the headquarters of the 6th Infantry Division of the People’s Armed Forces is located in the eastern part of El Fasher, with gates opening to the west and south in front of the presidential house where the headquarters of the governor of the state, and to the east of it are the government secretariat and the central bank branch. The RSF Command is located west of the army headquarters, separated by open fields. The army was able to control the headquarters
After two days of fighting, the RSF stabilized in the eastern neighborhoods of city. After the intervention of a committee including city notables and imams of mosques to stop the shooting between both sides, the committee divided the city as follows: The west of the city, which includes military headquarters affiliated with the army, all government institutions, the presidential house, and the Central Bank of Sudan.
Under the command of the army, east of the city, with its neighborhoods, the city stock exchange, the land port, and a station of main electricity supply, and the western Ingaz road linking Darfur to the capital, passing through the territory of Greater Kordofan and the cities of the White Nile, under the control of the RSF.
This distribution did not satisfy the city’s residents, especially its eastern and northeastern neighborhoods (Al-Nakhil, Khor Sila, Al-Tadamon, Al-Institute, Al-Tijaniya, Al-Thawra North, Al-Jabal), and they were forced to leave their homes, the vast majority went to the south of the city (Al-Salam neighborhood). The city center, where the large market is, the reconciliation agreement kept it under the protection of the police, which disappeared since the beginning of the war, after announcing the end of neutrality, the Joint Forces became responsible for securing the market and the headquarters of organizations, banks and state institutions.
Skirmishes and rumors
Over the past months, El Fasher has not been safe from small skirmishes and rumors, as the city was controlled by fear and siege. At the beginning of this April, dozens were killed in acts of civil violence in villages located in the countryside west of El Fasher, which resulted in the burning of the villages of Baraka, Al-Janjunat (the three), Darma, Azbani, Karo, Tequila, Ammar Jadid, Donki Shatta, and others, and their residents were forced to flee to the villages of Muqrin, Umm Heglig, and Shuqra, located west of El Fasher.
According to the Human Research Laboratory at Yale University School of Public Health, results of analysis of remote sensing and open source data showed that at least nine communities were destroyed due to apparent arson attacks between March 31 and March 15.
April 2024 in western El Fasher.
On Thursday, April 11, the Joint Force of Armed Struggle Movements accused the RSF of attacking villages and killing their civilian residents, and announced in a press statement, following a meeting of its leadership in El Fasher, that there was no longer neutrality, and that it would fight alongside the armed forces against the RSF militias, They won’t be on the defensive anymore. The first direct battles between Darfur armed movements and the RSF followed a year later.
Exactly since the outbreak of war, for its part, the RSF rejected the accusations, saying: Those who attacked the villages were unruly groups.
Then the army planes took off and began bombing RSF positions in the eastern and northeastern neighborhoods areas of the city which have been devoid of residents since last November
Former governor Nimr Abdul Rahman called on the army and RSF to stop the fighting and allow civilians to go out to safe locations in the city.
Military operations expanded, and on April 14, the RSF were able to take control oOn the city of Melit (about 90 km north of El Fasher). It was circulated on its page on X platform, the commander of the RSF in Mellit, Major General Ali Yaqoub, said that his forces implicated the joint force in the city – under the leadership of Abdullah Janna, the supreme leader of the SLM groups- losses and control of the former UNAMID headquarters, the army command, Customs, and police.
On the same day, clashes occurred in the city of El Fasher between the RSF and the army accompanied by the joint force composed of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Minni Arko Minawi, Justice and Equality is the Jibriel Ibrahim faction, and factions that split from the SLM, Transitional Council and Sudan Liberation Forces Association. The battles resulted on that day in 6 dead and 61 injured, including a doctor injured while performing her work, according to the committee’s statement in the preliminary session for the Sudan Doctors Syndicate. According to an eyewitness, “El Fasher in the evening received strike by warplanes targeting RSF positions east of the city. The sounds of artillery shelling continued until the last hours of the day, and then shelling returned Flying again.”
According to a statement by the Emergency Lawyer on April 16, 25 civilians were killed while casualties reached more than a hundred due to clashes in villages west of El Fasher and inside neighborhoods
Residential areas of the city, as a result of the random exchange of shells and random aerial bombardment, which caused a massive displacement of residents of villages west of the city to safer places inside the capital of North Darfur.
In mid-November, Arko Minawi and Jibriel Ibrahim announced from Port Sudan to end the position of neutrality and support the army in the war. Despite the participation of Salah Al-Wali representing the Sudan Liberation Forces gathering in the Port Sudan press announcement, the official spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Forces, Fathi Osman, said that participation Al-Wali took place without authorization or approval from the leadership, and he announced the position of the gathering
The Sudan Liberation Forces will continue to adhere to neutrality and seek to stop the war across the country, the negotiating methods, which is the same position announced by the Transitional Council led by Al-Hadi Idris. After 3 days, Al-Burhan issued a constitutional decree relieving Hajar From the position of member of the Sovereign Council, and about two weeks earlier, he had issued a similar decree relieving Al-Hadi Idriss. This was rejected by both men.
The two movements, unlike Minawi and Jibriel, had announced their rejection of a coup by Army and RSF in October 2021 against Hamdouk’s transitional government. They stand on the side of the civil part of the constitutional document. The two movements suffered from divisions at the level of their civilian and military leadership.
Because of the dispute over involvement in the war, on March 26, it was announced by the Sudan Liberation Movement – Transitional Council departed from the joint force due to failure to return the leadership of the joint force. Groups affiliated with it resorted to the joint force accompanied by military and administrative vehicles, they took shelter in the 6th Infantry Division as mobilized.
It is led by Lieutenant Colonel Abdeen Musa, while saying that the second reason is due to administrative procedure for the purpose of internal arrangement of its forces. Later, the President of Sudan liberation Association , Al-Tahir Hajar issued a similar statement announcing withdrawing from the joint force on the Darfur track, he was entrusted with the General Command and Chief of Staff of the Gathering Army of Sudan Liberation Forces and all relevant military units begin immediate action in forming a new joint force with all movements that are neutral with the same joined force declared by the Juba Agreement.
Military capacity
Speaking to “ATR”, Mohammad Taha, an academic familiar with Darfur affairs, aA former member of the Justice and Equality Movement and its political secretary in North Darfu said “the force divided from the Transitional Council is led by Salah Salah Rasas and Osman Abdul Jabbar, while leading the Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan Liberation Forces; Abdullah Janna leads his movement’s forces engaged in fighting. However, Taha does not see that as any of the force of Al-Hadi and Hajar, who adhere to neutrality, can engage in battles against the joint and the army, because the former does not have the military capacity, and the Military and civilian leadership is biased in favor of the second located in El Fasher to joint force options.
Killing of souls
With arrivals from the rest of the markets, it turned into a crowded mass of citizens with economic deterioration evident in the faces of the city’s poor. While the residents of the north of the city were not spared in the Naivasha and Abu Shouk camps against the random bullets and attacks that claimed the lives of innocent civilians.
And its market was alternately open and closed.”
“Currently, there is only one hospital operating in the city, which is the El Fasher Southern Hospital.”
He said
A volunteer in the El Fasher emergency room, speaking to the “ATR” network, added: “The southern one is the only referral hospital that has been operating since the outbreak of war last year. And with the outbreak
During the clashes earlier this week, the hospital received large numbers of injured citizens as a result of the bombing, the hospital lacks even medical gauze and other first aid kits after the absence of Doctors Without Borders from the surgery department last week. We can only advertise on our pages on social media platforms about our needs of volunteer staff and bottles.