The Sudanese Doctors’ Network said that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia continues to detain thousands of civilians inside the city of El Fasher, preventing them from leaving after seizing all means of transportation previously used to evacuate displaced residents.
In a statement released on Sunday, the network said the RSF forcibly returned several escapees to the city, including some who were wounded by gunfire while attempting to flee, as well as others suffering from malnutrition.
The statement warned that “the continued detention of such a large number of civilians amid extremely dire humanitarian conditions — including severe shortages of medicine, and a lack of medical personnel, some of whom remain detained or kidnapped by the RSF — constitutes an escalating humanitarian catastrophe.”
The Sudanese Doctors’ Network called on the international community and humanitarian organizations to intervene urgently to save civilians in El Fasher, warning that the humanitarian situation could deteriorate further as the siege on the city persists.
It stressed that “a collective demand for the immediate release of civilians, the opening of safe corridors for their evacuation, and allowing aid organizations to bury the bodies scattered on the outskirts of the city — which pose a growing environmental hazard — is an urgent necessity.”
Dr. Ahmed Al-Noor Ragm Allah, the network’s spokesperson, warned that the situation in El Fasher is “rapidly deteriorating amid the absence of humanitarian assistance and the prevention of aid organizations from operating,” describing it as “an escalating humanitarian disaster.”
