Tens of thousands of people are still trapped in Sudan\u2019s El-Fasher five days after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized the city. Fleeing survivors said on Saturday that paramilitary fighters separated families and killed children in front of their parents, and fresh satellite images suggested mass killings were likely ongoing
\n Tawila
\nSurvivors fleeing the Sudanese city of El-Fasher told to media on Saturday that paramilitary fighters separated families and killed children in front of their parents, with tens of thousands still trapped following the city\u2019s fall.
\nGermany\u2019s top diplomat Johann Wadephul described on Saturday the situation in Sudan as \u201capocalyptic\u201d while fresh satellite images suggested mass killings were likely ongoing, five days after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces seized El-Fasher.
\nAt war with the regular army since April 2023, the RSF pushed the military out of its last stronghold in the vast Darfur region after a grinding 18-month siege.
\nSince the takeover, reports have emerged of summary executions, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions, while communications remain largely cut off.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know if my son Mohamed is dead or alive. They took all the boys,\u201d Zahra, a mother of six who fled El-Fasher to the nearby town of Tawila, told AFP in a satellite phone interview.
\nBefore reaching the nearby RSF-controlled town of Garni, she said RSF fighters stopped them and took her sons, aged 16 and 20. \u201cI begged them to let them go,\u201d she said, but the fighters only released her 16-year-old son.
\nAnother survivor, Adam, said two of his sons, aged 17 and 21, were killed in front of him.
\n\u201cThey told them they had been fighting (for the army), and then they beat me on my back with a stick,\u201d he told AFP.
\nIn Garni, RSF fighters saw the blood of Adam\u2019s sons on his clothes and accused him of being a fighter. After hours of investigations, they let him go.
\nThe survivors\u2019 full names have been withheld for their safety.
\nThe UN says more than 65,000 people have fled El-Fasher since Sunday but tens of thousands remain trapped. Around 260,000 people were in the city before the RSF\u2019s final assault.
\n\u201cLarge numbers of people remain in grave danger and are being prevented by the Rapid Support Forces and its allies from reaching safer areas,\u201d Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said.
\nThe group said that only 5,000 people had managed to make their way to Tawila, about 70 kilometres to the west.
\nThe numbers of people arriving in Tawila \u201cdon\u2019t add up, while accounts of large-scale atrocities are mounting\u201d, MSF\u2019s head of emergencies Michel Olivier Lacharite said.
\n\u2018Mass killing is continuing\u2019
\nSeveral eyewitnesses told MSF that a group of 500 civilians, along with soldiers from the military and the army-allied Joint Forces, had attempted to flee on Sunday, but most were killed or captured by the RSF and their allies.
\nSurvivors reported that people were separated based on their gender, age or presumed ethnicity, and that many were still being held for ransom.
\nDarfur is home to a number of non-Arab ethnic groups, who make up a majority of the region\u2019s population, in contrast to Sudan\u2019s dominant Sudanese Arabs.
\nHayat, a mother of five who fled the city, previously told AFP that \u201cyoung men travelling with us were stopped\u201d along the way by paramilitaries and \u201cwe don\u2019t know what happened to them\u201d.
\nThe UN said on Friday the death toll from the RSF\u2019s assault on the city may be in the hundreds, while army allies accused the paramilitary group of killing over 2,000 civilians.
\nYale University\u2019s Humanitarian Research Lab suggested on Friday that mass killings were likely continuing in and around El-Fasher.
\nThe lab, which uses satellite imagery and open-source information to document human rights abuses during wars, said fresh images from Friday showed \u201cno large-scale movement\u201d of civilians fleeing the city, giving them reason to believe much of the population may be \u201cdead, captured, or in hiding\u201d.
\nThe lab identified at least 31 clusters of objects consistent with human bodies between Sunday and Friday, across neighbourhoods, university grounds and military sites.
\n\u201cIndicators that mass killing is continuing are clearly visible,\u201d the lab said.
\n\u2018Truly horrifying\u2019
\nAt a conference in Bahrain on Saturday, Wadephul said Sudan was \u201cabsolutely an apocalyptic situation, the greatest humanitarian crisis of the world\u201d.
\nThe RSF said on Thursday that it had arrested several fighters accused of abuses during the capture of El-Fasher, but UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher questioned the group\u2019s commitment to investigating atrocities.
\nBoth the RSF — descended from the Janjaweed militias accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago — and the army have faced war crimes accusations over the course of the conflict.
\nThe US has previously determined that the has RSF committed genocide in Darfur.
\nThe RSF has received weapons and drones from the UAE, according to UN reports.
\nAn Emirati official in a statement on Saturday said, \u201cwe categorically reject any claims of providing any form of support to either warring party… and condemn atrocities\u201d.
\nMeanwhile, the army has drawn on support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey.
\nEl-Fasher\u2019s capture gives the RSF full control over all five state capitals in Darfur, effectively splitting Sudan along an east-west axis, with the army controlling the north, east and centre.
\nUN officials have warned that the violence is now spreading to the neighbouring Kordofan region, with reports emerging of \u201clarge-scale atrocities perpetrated\u201d by the RSF.
\nThe wider conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced nearly 12 million and created the world\u2019s largest displacement and hunger crises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tens of thousands of people are still trapped in Sudan\u2019s El-Fasher five days after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized the city. Fleeing survivors said on Saturday that paramilitary fighters separated families and killed children in front of their parents, and fresh satellite images suggested mass killings were likely ongoing Tawila Survivors fleeing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-512191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n