IOM: More than 1,000 families flee Sudan's besieged El Fasher city
Port Sudan, Sudan (PANA) - The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) announced on Sunday that more than a thousand families have fled Sudan's besieged El Fasher city, the capital of North Darfur state.
For nearly two weeks, the city has witnessed an escalation in ground battles and shelling by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on El Fasher’s neighbourhoods and the Abu Shouk camp, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, Sudanese media outlets reported.
“Field assessment teams from the Displacement Tracking Matrix estimated that approximately 1,050 families were displaced from El Fasher on August 29, due to increased insecurity,” Darfur 24 reported,
The UN agency noted that these families were displaced from the Awlad al-Rif, Makarka, and al-Wadi neighbourhoods to other areas within the El Fasher locality after clashes affected their areas.
Sudan Tribune said the emergency room of the Abu Shouk camp, north of El Fasher, reported in a statement that RSF artillery shelling on the camp killed eight people and injured nine others.
The RSF has disregarded all UN demands and appeals to facilitate aid access to El Fasher, including the UN Security Council resolution issued on June 13, 2024, which called for the forces to lift the siege and de-escalate.
Sudan Tribune said fears are mounting that the forces will commit horrific crimes during their ground incursions into the northern neighbourhoods of the city and the Abu Shouk camp for the displaced, similar to the widespread violations committed when they overran the Zamzam camp last April.
Meanwhile, the state-owned Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported that World Food Programme (WFP) employees in North Darfur, in cooperation with the Kosti office and the “Tekiàt Al-Zaghawa” initiative in the UAE, have initiated humanitarian support for those affected by the war in El Fasher through “Tekiàt El Fasher.”
It stated that the community kitchen provided meals to hundreds of families in shelters, displacement centres, and neighbourhoods, benefiting the most vulnerable groups, including children, women, and the elderly.
El Fasher is suffering from a severe humanitarian crisis due to a lack of goods, which has forced most of those trapped to eat “ambaz,” a solid mass of peanut and sesame residue left after oil extraction.
On Saturday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) demanded immediate access for supplies stored in Nyala to reach El Fasher to save the lives of 130,000 malnourished children. It also reported that 260,000 people in the city require health assistance.
The RSF has deployed thousands of fighters around El Fasher to obstruct the arrival of relief, medicine, and goods to the city, which they have besieged since April 2024. They also control all entry and exit routes after constructing an earthen barrier around the historic capital of the Darfur region.
Despite the rejection and condemnation by the international community of the declaration by RSF of a rival administration in parts of the East African country it controls, it has gone ahead to install a parallel government.
The president and members of the Presidential Council of the parallel government were sworn into office on Saturday. RSF leader, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemetti”, is the chairman of the Council.
The step worsens the volatile situation in the country where two years of a bitter war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions, created one of the world's biggest humanitarian crises and destroyed the country's infrastructure.
The UN Security Council in rejecting the RSF's declaration last month of a rival administration warned that it threatened the country’s unity and risked worsening the brutal conflict between the militia and forces of the military government.
It also warned that the step posed “a direct threat to Sudan’s territorial integrity” and could fragment the country, fuel the fighting, and deepen an already dire humanitarian crisis.
-0- PANA MA 1Sept2025
