World Tour: Fleeing el-Fasher

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: more carnage in Africa.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Last week in Sudan, rebel forces battling the military for control of the country captured the capital city of North Darfur state.

Since then, survivors have shared reports of indiscriminate killings and abuse in el-Fasher. The attacks further complicate any hope for peace in the country’s two-year war.

Here’s WORLD’S Africa reporter Onize Oduah.

ONIZE ODUAH: For five days, seventy-year-old Fatima Abdulrahim and her grandchildren walked 40-miles…hiding in trenches and dodging bullets. They were fleeing from el-Fasher after rebels from the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group…or RSF unleashed violence there in recent days.

Today they are safe in a thatched tent at a makeshift displacement camp in Sudan’s city of Tawila.

ABDULRAHIM: [ARABIC] I kept covering the eyes of the children, who were scared. I didn't want them to see. There were many along the road who'd been injured and beaten and could not move.

RSF besieged the city for 18 months before capturing it fully last week from military forces. The two generals on the warring sides are former allies who orchestrated a coup together in 2021.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 14 million.

On Monday, a global hunger advocacy group confirmed famine in el-Fasher and another city … warning that 20 other areas remain at risk.

Joseph Siegle is a senior research associate at the University of Maryland.

SIEGLE: This is not a civil war in the classic sense of different ethnic groups, communities, regions of a country fighting one another. This is about a political conflict between these two military leaders who want to control the state, and it’s spiraled further out of control.

Other survivors from el-Fasher have described assaults, dead bodies left on the streets, and rebels going door to door to kill people.

The United Nations estimates that more than 36,000 people have fled el-Fasher in less than two weeks.

In one harrowing instance, the World Health Organization said suspected rebels killed at least 460 people… at a hospital in the city. The victims included health workers and patients.

Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo is the RSF commander.

DAGALO: [ARABIC] But now our committees have arrived in el-Fasher, an investigation committee should start immediately to hold any soldier or officer who committed a crime or crossed their limits towards any human accountable.

In a later video, the rebel group showed the arrest of a fighter known as Abu Lulu. He appeared in several circulating videos of summary executions. The group also said it arrested several other fighters.

But Siegle says the move is political … since Dagalo still aspires to cling onto power.

SIEGLE: This claim that RSF is going to take responsibility, think it's really meant for international ears, and there's been little evidence that the RSF has taken any accountability or pursued any justice for the abuses of its forces.

UN officials warn that the violence isn’t limited to el-Fasher.

Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee is the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Africa.

POBEE: Drone strikes by both parties are also affecting new territories and new targets. These include Blue Nile, Khartoum, Senar, South Kordofan, and West Darfur, suggesting that the territorial scope of the conflict is broadening.

The United States has said it is working with both sides to reach a humanitarian truce.

Massad Boulos is the U.S. senior adviser for Arab and African Affairs.

BOULOS: We came up with a comprehensive plan that has a clear roadmap with a timeline. So, the timeline starts with the three-month truce, humanitarian truce that we're talking about now, and then the nine-month process, political process, and all the other details.

But beyond a truce, Siegle says a civilian government is the way forward for Sudan.

SIEGLE: It’s a very short-sighted approach to think that, well, we just have to negotiate between the two armed factions. It overlooks the fact that there's this mass of support for a civilian led government in Sudan.

In the meantime the people of Sudan are still hoping for peace … while coming to terms with the ongoing violence.

On Monday, at least 40 people died after a drone strike hit a funeral in North Kordofan state.

Abdulrahim mourns for the children of Sudan.

ABDULRAHIM: [ARABIC] You'd be shocked by the state of the world. People are brought to the hospital in groups of 50, 60, or 70 injured at once. As for those who died, their number is countless. Families have died. The children of Sudan have died.

That’s this week’s World Tour. I’m Onize Oduah.

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