A Sudanese Armed Forces soldier drove through the ruins of the historic Al-Shaabi market in Omdurman, Sudan, outside Khartoum, on April 22. A feud between two generals fighting for power has dragged Sudan into civil war and turned Khartoum and its surroundings into ground zero for one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes.IVOR PRICKETT/The New York Times News Service
Evidence of horrific new atrocities in two regions of Sudan has sparked growing international alarm at a war that has now forced more than nine million people to flee their homes.
An estimated 100 to 150 people, including dozens of children, were reportedly killed in a massacre this week in a village in Gezira state in central Sudan. Video images on social media showed scores of bodies wrapped in white shrouds awaiting burial in Wad Al-Noura village.
“Even by the tragic standards of Sudan’s conflict, the images emerging from Wad Al-Noura are heartbreaking,” said Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator in Sudan, in a statement on Thursday. There were credible reports of heavy gunfire and explosive weapons in the village, she said.
A separate report, based on satellite images, identified more than 200 fresh graves since March in five cemeteries in El Fasher, the biggest city in North Darfur. The report, by the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, also found evidence of a growing number of neighbourhoods destroyed by arson attacks in the city, targeting the Zaghawa ethnic minority.
In both regions, the attacks are being blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been fighting against Sudan’s military since the war began in April, 2023.
In Gezira, the RSF has attacked dozens of villages in recent weeks, after capturing the capital Wad Madani last December. In Darfur, the RSF has been advancing into El Fasher this month, seeking to capture the last major city in the region that it does not already control.
The situation in El Fasher “has deteriorated to catastrophic levels,” the Yale researchers said in their report this week.
“Significant civilian fatalities, massive displacement, the destruction of shelters and markets, and severe food insecurity close to famine in El Fasher are rendering the city uninhabitable,” it said in a 34-page report that included dozens of satellite photos and maps of thermal scarring caused by arson attacks.
“At this point, the RSF’s alleged widespread and systematic targeting of 40 communities around El Fasher is consistent with potential mass atrocities including crimes against humanity,” the report said.
Since April, the fighting in El Fasher has forced nearly 130,000 people to abandon their homes, according to Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide.
“Famine is looming in many parts of the city,” she said in a statement this week. “Safe haven for civilians is effectively being reduced. This is deeply disturbing. It is unquestionable that risk factors and indicators for genocide and related crimes are present, and the risks are increasing.”
Humanitarian agency Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) said two mortar shells have exploded in recent days at South Hospital, a facility supported by MSF in El Fasher. The explosions have killed and injured civilians at the hospital, it said.
More than 1,000 injured people have sought treatment at the hospital in the past four weeks, and 145 have died from their wounds, MSF said.
“We see a bloodbath unfolding before our own eyes in El Fasher,” MSF program manager Claire Nicolet said in a statement.
“The intensity of the fighting is leaving civilians with no respite and now hospitals are being increasingly engulfed in the fighting, making it harder and harder to treat the wounded.”
Two residents of El Fasher told The Globe and Mail that they had lost family members in the fierce fighting in the city in recent days. One woman, Hawa, said her sister was in a group of people hit by a drone attack when they were trying to move to a more secure building. The Globe and Mail is identifying her only by her first name because of risks to her safety.
“We couldn’t take her to South Hospital because the clashes were very intense,” she said. “We took her to a medical centre run by volunteers, but she died. They couldn’t help her because of lack of medicine and staff.”
Even before the death of her sister, Hawa said she was trying to leave the city. “There is no safe zone in this city,” she said.
Adam Ali, a businessman in El Fasher, said his sister was killed when the RSF fired a rocket barrage that hit her house on June 2. The RSF was probably aiming its rockets at a checkpoint run by a militia ally of the Sudanese army, but they hit the house instead, killing four people and injuring four others, he said.
“We took her to South Hospital with serious injuries, but with the lack of staff and medicine at the hospital she passed away the following day,” he told The Globe.
The RSF siege of the city has triggered a sharp increase in the prices of food and water, residents told The Globe.
Some water pipes have stopped working because of a lack of fuel to power their pumps, they said. This has left residents dependent on small water holes, and the price of a container of water has tripled. Some residents must walk for many kilometres to find a water source, they said.
Ezaldeen Arbab is Special to The Globe and Mail