More than 36,000 flee Sudan’s Kordofan region as RSF advances after El Fasher capture

More than 36,000 people have fled Sudan’s Kordofan region since Saturday as fighting intensified following the capture of El Fasher by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the UN’s migration agency said, as reported by The Guardian.

The strategic central area, which lies between Darfur and the capital Khartoum, has become the latest battleground in Sudan’s two-year civil war between the armed forces and the RSF.

An estimated 36,825 people fled five localities in North Kordofan state between 26 October, when El Fasher fell after more than a year under siege, and 31 October, the International Organisation for Migration said on Sunday.

Most fled on foot to Tawila, a town west of El Fasher now sheltering more than 652,000 displaced people, according to the UN.

The International Committee of the Red Cross president, Mirjana Spoljaric, said on Monday the situation was horrific.

History was repeating itself in Darfur, she said, where more than 200,000 people were killed in the early 2000s genocide when Arab Janjaweed militias suppressed an insurgency by non-Arab groups under Omar al-Bashir’s regime. The Janjaweed later evolved into the RSF.

“It’s history repeating and it becomes worse every time a place is taken over by the other party,” she told Reuters.

International Criminal Court prosecutors said on Monday they were collecting evidence of alleged mass killings, rapes and other crimes in El Fasher. Witnesses reported RSF fighters going house to house, killing civilians and committing sexual assaults.

Gunmen killed at least 460 people at a hospital and abducted doctors and nurses, according to the World Health Organisation.

The prosecutors said they were taking immediate steps to preserve and collect evidence for future prosecutions.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said on Monday that famine had been detected in El Fasher and Kadugli in South Kordofan. Twenty other areas in Darfur and Kordofan were at risk of famine, it said.

Residents in North Kordofan on Monday reported a surge in RSF and army presence across towns and villages as both forces vie for El Obeid, the state capital and a key logistics hub linking Darfur to Khartoum.

In a video shared late Sunday, an RSF member said forces had converged on Bara, a city north of El Obeid. RSF claimed control of Bara last week.

Suleiman Babiker, who lives in Um Smeima west of El Obeid, told Agence France-Presse that RSF vehicles had increased since the capture of El Fasher. “We stopped going to our farms, afraid of clashes,” he said.

Another resident said there had been a large increase in army vehicles and weapons west and south of El Obeid over the past two weeks.

Martha Pobee, the assistant UN secretary general for Africa, warned last week of large-scale atrocities and ethnically motivated reprisals by RSF in Bara, echoing patterns in Darfur where the group has been accused of mass killings, sexual violence and abductions against non-Arab groups.

The war has created one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century, according to the UN. More than 150,000 people have been killed and more than 14 million displaced.

Pope Francis appealed on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian corridors, saying attacks on civilians and hindrances to aid were causing unacceptable suffering.

Spoljaric said tens of thousands had fled El Fasher and tens of thousands more were likely trapped without food, water or medical assistance. ICRC staff in Tawila heard reports of people collapsing and dying from exhaustion or wounds whilst fleeing, she said, calling the situation absolutely unacceptable.

She said armed conflicts had doubled in the past 15 years to approximately 130, urging parties from Gaza to Ukraine to uphold the rules of war.

Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt, Imadeldin Mustafa Adawi, accused RSF of war crimes in El Fasher. The government would not negotiate with the paramilitary group, he said, urging the international community to designate it as a terrorist organisation.