A boy walks in a camp for displaced people in Northern Darfur, Sudan.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres and High Commissioner for Human Rights Türk today called on all parties to urgently de-escalate the situation and warn of devastating consequences for civilians amid a sharp escalation of tensions between armed actors in El Fasher, the capital of Sudan's Northern Darfur State.
The Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General told reporters that reports of El Fasher are increasingly worrying and that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are believed to be encircling El Fasher, suggesting that the militia may soon launch a coordinated attack on El Fasher, while rival Sudanese Armed Forces appear to be deploying.
The Secretary-General has called for the avoidance of fighting
The spokesman's office stressed that the area where tensions are escalating is already on the verge of famine, and that an attack on the city of El Fasher would have devastating consequences for the civilian population.
To this end, Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated that all parties should refrain from fighting in the area where El Fasher is located. The Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for the Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, is also engaging with the parties to ease tensions in El Fasher.
The security and humanitarian situation in El Fasher is dire
OHCHR spokesman Seif Magango said on the same day that at least 43 people, including women and children, had been killed in the vicinity of El Fasher in the past two weeks as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified hostilities in the area. There have also been reports of indiscriminate attacks on residential areas using explosive weapons with wide area impact on both sides.
Magango noted that El Fasher, which has become the only SAF-controlled city in Darfur, is currently trapped by civilians who fear being killed when trying to flee.
The situation is compounded by a severe shortage of basic supplies due to the fact that the fighting has severely restricted the delivery of commercial goods and humanitarian assistance, and the inability of trucks carrying supplies to move freely through territory controlled by the Rapid Support Forces.
Ethnic violence specifies
Magango also said that since the beginning of April, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had launched several large-scale attacks on villages west of El Fasher, some of which were completely burned down, mainly by the Zaghawa minority community in Africa.
He warned that such attacks could further ethnically motivated violence, including mass killings, in Darfur. At the same time, he reminded that fighting and attacks by the Risegars and African Masalites in Western Darfur had resulted in the death or injury of hundreds of civilians and the displacement of thousands more in the past year.
The High Commissioner emphasizes accountability
Magango stressed that High Commissioner Türk called for an immediate de-escalation of this catastrophic situation and an end to the conflict that has been raging in Sudan for more than a year. He also called for an investigation into all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law to ensure accountability and guarantee victims' rights to truth, justice and reparation.
Türk urged both parties to the conflict and their allies to allow the safe transfer of civilians to other areas, while ensuring the protection of civilians and civilian objects and facilitating safe and unhindered humanitarian access.
