More civilians at Risk in Sudan’s Darfur as ‘Heavy Weaponry’ Involved

TRT/ UN
Violent clashes have erupted between Sudan’s main military and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces [RSF] in el-Fasher city of North Darfur state, Sudanese activists said.
The statement pointed out that “heavy artillery shells fell randomly on citizens’ houses, leading to several injuries.”
There has been no comment from the Sudanese Arms Forces (SAF)or the RSF on the statement as of yet.
Since early April, clashes between the Sudanese army and the RSF have been ongoing.
El-Fasher is the capital of North Darfur State, the centre of the Darfur region, and the only city that has not fallen into the hands of the RSF.
There have been increasing international and UN calls to spare Sudan a humanitarian catastrophe that could push millions into famine and death due to food shortages caused by fighting.
A major city in Sudan’s western region of Darfur has been rocked by fighting involving “heavy weaponry”, a senior UN official said.
Violence erupted in populated areas of El-Fasher, putting about 800,000 people at risk, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, said in a statement.
Wounded civilians were being rushed to hospital and civilians were trying to flee the fighting, she added.
For more than a year, Sudan has suffered a war between (SAF), headed by the country’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah al Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people and forced more than 8.5 million to flee their homes in what the United Nations has called the “largest displacement crisis in the world”.
The RSF has seized four out of five state capitals in Darfur, a region about the size of France and home to around one-quarter of Sudan’s 48 million people.
El-Fasher is the last major city in Darfur that is not under paramilitary control and the United States warned last month of a looming offensive on the city.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was “very concerned about the ongoing war in Sudan”.
“We need an urgent ceasefire and a coordinated international effort to deliver a political process that can get the country back on track,” he said in a post on social media site X.
The war in Sudan broke out on April 15, 2023, over disagreements about integrating RSF into the army between army General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Estimates suggest that nearly 16,000 people have been killed in the violence, and around two million people fled the country, mainly to Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.
Around 8.5 million have been displaced internally.
Many rounds of negotiations have been held — mostly mediated by Saudi Arabia and the US — but failed to yield any results or cessation of hostilities.
The fight for the city a historic centre of power, could grow more protracted, inflame ethnic tensions that surfaced in the region 20 years ago and reach across Sudan’s border with Chad, say residents, aid agencies and analysts.