Bleeding and Fleeing: Over 650 Wounded Escape Besieged El Fasher in Less Than a Month
Sudan Events – Agencies
More than 650 wounded people have fled the besieged city of El Fasher in North Darfur, western Sudan, to surrounding areas since mid-August, enduring arduous journeys without medical care, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Thursday.
In recent weeks, El Fasher has witnessed some of the fiercest attacks since the outbreak of war between the army, which controls the city, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have laid siege to it, leaving dozens dead.
The war between the Sudanese army and the RSF, ongoing since April 2023, has killed more than 20,000 people and forced around 15 million into displacement or refuge, according to the UN and local authorities.
Over 650 wounded escape El Fasher
MSF said that “650 wounded people arrived at its hospital in Tawila, about 60 kilometers from El Fasher.”
Some arrived “on foot, bleeding from gunshot wounds or severe whippings,” according to Sylvain Benico, MSF’s project coordinator in Tawila.
“These are the lucky ones who managed to survive the horrors of El Fasher and escape,” Benico stressed.
The organization reported that its hospitals in North, Central, and South Darfur received 99 wounded patients on Wednesday alone, four of whom were already dead upon arrival.
Last Friday, the UN fact-finding mission in Sudan said both parties had committed “widespread and systematic war crimes,” pointing to deliberate targeting of infrastructure, markets, and displacement camps by both the army and the RSF.
Famine, cholera, and violence on escape routes
Alongside the violence, El Fasher and nearby displacement camps face famine and a cholera outbreak amid the collapse of clean water supplies and healthcare.
According to MSF, “those attempting to flee El Fasher face killing, torture, sexual violence, and other forms of extreme abuse” along the road to Tawila, now littered with corpses.
Survivors told MSF they were forced to abandon gravely wounded relatives during their flight, as they could not have survived the journey.
