Concerns are mounting for the safety of civilians trapped in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher, with reports of mass executions and a near-total communications blackout hampering aid efforts and obscuring the full scale of the crisis.
A man from the city has told BBC Arabic that there has been a “complete blackout of news” since 25 May, leaving those outside extremely worried about the fate of residents.
“We still have no information about what has happened to the people inside el-Fasher – the children, the elderly, the wounded,” he said.
“Many of the wounded and injured remain trapped in the city. We are extremely worried,” he added.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of the city over the weekend after a siege lasting more than a year. El-Fasher was the last major city in the Darfur region not under RSF control.
Evidence of ‘mass executions’
Analysis of imagery from the city appears to corroborate the worst fears of those separated from their families.
US-based researchers from Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab have described seeing evidence of “piles of bodies executed en masse, or shot by snipers” near the city’s perimeter.
Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, told BBC Newshour they had identified “clear evidence of house-to-house clearance operations” in one neighbourhood.
“In at least four cases, we see discoloration of the ground around these objects and the colour of the discoloration is red – we believe that’s consistent with individuals who have bled out onto the ground,” Mr Raymond said.
The RSF has repeatedly denied allegations that it is harming civilians.
Aid hub under siege
The fall of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, has significant humanitarian consequences for the entire region. The city, located over 800km (497 miles) west of Khartoum, serves as the main entry point for aid convoys from Port Sudan before aid is distributed across Darfur.
The city is also home to a large number of displacement camps, some established over two decades ago during the Darfur civil war and others housing people who had fled fighting in other parts of Darfur taken over by the RSF.
Trickle of escapees
A tiny number of the city’s estimated 260,000 residents have managed to flee to the town of Tawila, about 50km (31 miles) away. Handwritten lists of those who have made it out are being shared on social media by desperate people searching for news of loved ones.
Video from an aid group in Tawila shows exhausted new arrivals sitting on the ground, with many reporting “dangerous movements and horrific abuses” in el-Fasher, according to Filippo Grandi, the head of the UN’s refugee agency.
RSF expands control
As the situation in el-Fasher deteriorates, the RSF has continued to make gains elsewhere. The BBC has verified footage showing RSF fighters celebrating their consolidation of control in the Um Dam Haj Ahmed area in North Kordofan province, extending their reach further east.
The capture of this territory, about 610km (379 miles) from el-Fasher, underscores the group’s growing momentum in the civil war, which has now raged for over two years between the RSF and the Sudanese military.
