UN Condemns Escalation of Violence in El Fasher in Darfur

The U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Turk expressed horror at the escalating violence situation in Sudan’s El Fasher in Darfur where hostilities between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces are severely impacting civilians.
“At least 58 civilians are reported to have been killed and 213 others injured in El Fasher since fighting dramatically escalated last week, and these figures are certainly an underestimate,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in Geneva.
Shamdasani said Turk had held phone conversations with both sides and had urged them to put aside entrenched positions and take specific, concrete steps to cease hostilities and to ensure the effective protection of civilians.
On Wednesday, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the top U.N. humanitarian official in the war-ravaged country, told a U.N. news conference that hostilities in El Fasher have been escalating and clashes over the weekend and early this week caused dozens of casualties and displaced many more of the 800,000 people still in the city.
Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, broke out into street battles in the capital, Khartoum.
Fighting has spread to other parts of the country, especially urban areas and the vast western Darfur region, and the U.N. says over 14,000 people have been killed and 33,000 injured.
The paramilitary forces, known as the RSF, have gained control of most of Darfur and are besieging the key city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the only capital they don’t hold.