El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, is today one of the largest hells. After more than 500 days under siege, the city succumbed to the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the Sudanese army. At the end of October, and after months of offensive, the militiamen conquered the city and massacred the population: armed attacks, rapes against women and girls, incessant shootings against civilians. Communications disruptions have made it difficult to verify the death toll, but the United Nations estimates that nearly 500 people were killed in Saudi Arabia’s El Fasher maternity hospital alone. And the number of victims after the capture of the municipality could exceed 2,000, according to the Sudanese authorities.
Shayna Lewis, a human rights consultant for the NGO Avaaz specializing in Sudan, sees the El Fasher massacres as “the most predictable genocide on the planet”. “Within a week, RSF executed so many civilians that the land of El Fasher changed,” he told EL PAÍS via video conference. “From space you can see the liters of blood that have stained the earth.”
The Humanitarian Research Laboratory (HRL) of the Yale University School of Public Health (United States) analyzed the situation in the El Fasher area at the end of October. Satellite images included in a recent report show RSF vehicles, some equipped with weapons, along with objects the size of human bodies and reddish stains on the ground near the vehicles. The analysis center estimates the deaths at 10,000 civilians.
Survivors of the attacks, now refugees in the Tawila refugee camp, 60 kilometers west of El Fasher, shared their testimonies during this conference. All names used in survivor testimonies have been changed to protect their identities.
Amira, a mother of four, fled El Fasher towards Korma, about 40 kilometers to the northwest. The road, he says, was long and “full of corpses”. The family witnessed the murders with their own eyes, without anyone being able to help them. “We woke up shaking with fear, the images of the massacre haunt us,” Amira said at a recent press conference sponsored by Avaaz. Members of the RSF took her and her children hostage: “They didn’t let us leave until we paid them one million Sudanese pounds (about 1,500 euros) each.” Stripped of all their belongings, they arrived in Tawila: “We walked for about 10 hours on thorns.”
Mohamed, another El Fasher survivor, was working in the canteen of the Saudi Maternity Hospital, the last remaining medical facility there, at the time of the attack. He fled. On the way to Tawila, the militiamen inspected him completely, together with those who accompanied him: “(The RSF) also checked the children’s diapers and sanitary napkins.” He remembers being beaten and humiliated repeatedly. Even having to walk for hours hungry and thirsty.
Hawa, a widow and mother of two children aged 2 and 12, is eight months pregnant. She decided to leave the capital after her husband’s murder. All his belongings had been stolen. In her case, it was the militia itself that brought her to Tawila. “I don’t know anything about my family in El Fasher,” he complained during the press conference. “Winter is coming. We need organizations to help us by bringing blankets, clothes, water containers.”
The transfer of civilians from El Fasher to Tawila by the RSF was, according to Lewis, a recurring practice but questioned by aid workers. The specialist identifies three models: they kill civilians, take them to the Tawila camp or transport them to unknown locations. In the latter case, the treatment and fate they will receive is unknown.
Deng set out on the first day of the final assault on the capital. He recalls that the paramilitaries rounded up several people – including himself – and made a live broadcast boasting about their good treatment of civilians. Shortly before, however, the militiamen had stripped them of all their belongings. The man also remembers being attacked by SAF drones, the Sudanese army to which he was accused of belonging. “(The RSF) was constantly saying that there were no more civilians in El Fasher, that we were all SAF soldiers,” he explains.
Khamisa is scarred by the days of siege in the capital: “In the last two days we haven’t found anything to eat.” The militiamen took her son away together with one hundred other minors. “I told them that I was sick, that I suffered from anemia. I begged them to bring him back to me,” he says. The next day she was transferred to Tawila. He never saw his son again.
Abu lost two of his sons in RSF attacks, one of them in his home. The market where he worked was also bombed. There, bags of animal food were sold, for days the only source of food available to the population. Taken hostage, he had to call a friend to respond to the militiamen’s demand for one million Sudanese pounds (1,500 euros). After being released, it took him three days – walking and “exhausted” – to reach Tawila.
Sexual violence and unaccompanied minors
Although the data obtained is still scarce due to interruptions in the communication network, the information obtained by experts in the area is alarming. Adam Rojal, spokesperson for the General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees, offers some. “We have recorded 150 cases of sexual violence, 1,300 gunshot wounds and 750 unaccompanied children” among those arriving from El Fasher to Tawila camp, the last safe point in Darfur.
Natalia Romero, communications manager for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in North Darfur, assures that the flow of people is still important: “It is very difficult to estimate the number of people who have arrived, but they fluctuate between 5,000 and 15,000, even if there is no official organization that does the counting,” she says in a voice note. UN access to the RSF-controlled area is still limited.
Last August, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that around 260,000 people still resided in El Fasher. Arrivals in Tawila represent, according to Romero, “a very low number”. This, however, is a major concern for workers on the ground: it indicates that many civilians have died or remain in the controlled city. “It’s a bloodbath,” says the MSF worker.
Humanitarian professionals also fear the impact of war on young people. Francesco Lanino, deputy director of Programs and Operations in Sudan of the NGO Save the Children, fears that the number of child soldiers will increase. An increase that has already been detected and which, if not addressed, risks prolonging the war. Until a truce is reached and there is certain stability in the area, Lanino regrets, his team will not be able to intervene.
In another press conference, held last Friday in Madrid, the charge d’affaires of the Sudanese embassy in Spain, Shza Abdelaziz Kamil Abdelaziz, reiterated the “commitment” of the Sudanese government “to a just and equitable peace” in the country, but condemned, like Lewis, the passivity of the international community. The government, he assured, will sit down to negotiate with the militias only when they “lay down their weapons and submit to the authority of the state”.
