Tens of thousands of people have fled from Sudan’s El Fasher to a nearby refugee camp, after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the last major city in Sudan’s western Darfur region that was held by the Sudanese army.
More than 26,000 people have arrived at the Tawila camp, which is located about 60 kilometres from El Fasher, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.
“New arrivals report dangerous movements and horrific abuses,” UNHCR head Filippo Grandi wrote on X.
Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet, the head of UNHCR’s field office in Sudan, said those who fled El Fasher reported indiscriminate violence, murders and executions of people with disabilities.
Others said they were shot at while fleeing, Parlevliet said, and many stayed behind because they were unable to get out.
The Sudanese army said on Monday that it had withdrawn from El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state and the final government stronghold in the Darfur region, much of which has fallen under RSF control.
The city’s population, previously up to 300,000 people, has been under siege by the RSF for a year and a half, during which time many experienced torture, looting, rape and the recruitment of children into armed groups.
Tawila camp was already in a dire state, after around 400,000 people arrived there within a few months earlier this year following the RSF’s capture of other camps.
Aid organizations say the camp does not have enough safe drinking water and food, or toilets. Diseases such as cholera are now spreading.
Sudan has been gripped by a brutal power struggle since April 2023 between de facto ruler Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the RSF. Observers fear the conflict could lead to the country’s permanent division.