Growing Fears of Renewed Ethnic Massacre in Darfur Areas
The New York Times
Growing Fears of Renewed Ethnic Massacre in Darfur Areas
Written by Declan Walsh
Surrounded by fighters, haunted by famine, and fearing the worst, a powerful paramilitary group has besieged El Fasher, the last remaining obstacle to control of the sprawling Darfur region, raising concerns about mass killings if the city is captured. In recent days, fears have mounted of a renewed ethnic massacre in Sudan’s Darfur region, where violence and genocide killed up to 300,000 people two decades ago, with an imminent attack on a besieged city already threatened by famine.
The competition for control of El Fasher, the last city controlled by the Sudanese army in Darfur, has sparked alarming warnings from US and UN officials who fear mass bloodshed is imminent. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the United Nations, told reporters on Monday that the city was “on the verge of a large-scale massacre.”
El Fasher is the latest flashpoint in the year-long civil war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group once sponsored by the army and now its arch rival for power.
The conflict has devastated one of Africa’s largest countries and created a widespread humanitarian crisis that UN officials say is one of the largest in decades.
The crisis also brings sharp focus to the role of foreign powers accused of fueling the fighting, especially the United Arab Emirates.
Since April 14, fighters loyal to the Rapid Support Forces have surrounded government forces in El Fasher in preparation for what the United Nations called an “imminent attack.” The population of El Fasher, the former capital of the pre-colonial Kingdom of Darfur, is about 1.8 million, including hundreds of thousands who fled previous waves of fighting.
The city is the last obstacle before the Rapid Support Forces to dominate the region. Its fighters swept across Darfur last fall and now control four of the five major cities in the region.
Control of El Fasher would give the group a block of territory covering, with neighboring regions, about a third of Sudan and would likely hasten a shift in the course of the war. One scary scenario is for Sudan to split into competing fiefdoms, as happened in Libya after the death of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
At least 43 people were killed in El Fasher in recent weeks, including women and children, according to the United Nations, in skirmishes and bombings on the outskirts of the city, which residents fear are just a sample of the violence to come. Dhawalbeit Muhammad, a resident of El Fasher who fled the city last year, said:
“Everyone expects an attack at any moment.” He said that he is in constant contact with his parents and siblings whom he left there. “It seems inevitable.”
In the early 2000s, when the ethnic massacres in Darfur were the focus of global attention, the worst atrocities were committed by the Janjaweed – a fearsome group of ethnic Arab fighters who later evolved into the Rapid Support Forces.
And in the livestock market area of El Fasher, in September, following bombing by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Agence France-Presse – Getty Images Before Sudan was plunged into war, Reporters Without Borders reported on brutal massacres and looting.
However, experts say an attack on El Fasher would be too risky for the RSF, and potentially costly. This gives hope to many Western and Arab officials, including some in the United States, that international pressure can still persuade both sides to back down and avoid disaster.
The United Nations Security Council held an emergency session on Monday to discuss the crisis behind closed doors. After the session, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said that the United States is calling on all countries – including the United Arab Emirates – to stop supporting the warring parties in Sudan, warning that “a crisis of epic proportions looms on the horizon.”
“I have said before that history is repeating itself in Darfur in the worst possible way,” Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield @USAmbUN Follow The Rapid Support Forces must end their siege and pledge any attack on the city. All parties must withdraw their military forces. The entire international community must put pressure on this.
Sudan and some UN officials say that the UAE provided the group with money and weapons; Last year, the New York Times reported on an operation to smuggle Emirati weapons to the Rapid Support Forces through eastern Chad from the United Arab Emirates. The UAE has denied providing any support to the Rapid Support Forces, most recently in a letter to the Security Council.
The war in Sudan, which passed its first year on April 15, is escalating and expanding at an astonishing speed.
The conflict that began as a power struggle between rival generals – army chief Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces – and its leader, Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan, has turned into a sprawling conflict that has attracted ethnic, religious and rebel groups on both sides, as well as a host of foreign sponsors.
On Monday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov attended meetings at the port with Sudanese military and civilian leaders. The Russian Wagner Group supplied the Rapid Support Forces with missiles in the first weeks of the war. The Kremlin has long sought access to the Red Sea in Sudan.
Elsewhere in Darfur, the Rapid Support Forces. The progress has been accompanied by widespread ethnic violence. United Nations investigators estimate that between 10,000 and 15,000 civilians were killed during an attack on the city of El Geneina in West Darfur last October. Most of the victims were from African ethnic groups that have long been targeted by the Arab-dominated Rapid Support Forces. The total number of deaths in the year-long civil war is unknown.
However, peace was holding in El Fasher, thanks to a local truce between the Rapid Support Forces. And other armed groups surrounding the city. But that fragile agreement collapsed in recent weeks when the Sudanese army persuaded or urged groups in Darfur to abandon their neutral stance, forcing the RSF to flee. To move around the city.
The Rapid Support Forces accuse the army of provoking fighting by aerial bombardment of the Rapid Support Forces. controlled areas, which in one recent case led to the killing of seven herders and an estimated 250 camels.
Starving residents find themselves caught in the crossfire.
In Zamzam camp, 10 miles south of El Fasher, 40 percent of children between the ages of 6 months and 2 years suffer from acute malnutrition, and one child dies every two hours, MSF reported in February. She described the situation as “very disastrous.”
However, both sides of the conflict are obstructing the arrival of food aid, according to US and UN officials. The Sudanese army prevented the United Nations from bringing aid through Chad except at the only border crossing controlled by one of its allies.
A senior UN official, who requested anonymity to avoid compromising relief operations, said that the Rapid Support Forces had imposed their own controls on foreign aid in the town of Mellit, located just north of El Fasher, which led to a virtual halt in the delivery of much-needed aid.
El Fasher residents expressed their concern over what will happen next by phone. Shadia Ibrahim, a radio station technician, said she cowered in her home when a violent exchange of gunfire broke out on Sunday east of the city. She added that electricity was cut off, and water and food prices rose. Ms. Ibrahim expressed her hope that the city would be spared the fate of El Geneina, where the battle was followed by a massacre. “We hope nothing like that happens here,” she said.
April 29, 2024
