In Sudan, the war spreads to two new large cities, the displaced increasingly fragile

The war that has ravaged Sudan for more than four months has spread to two new, heavily populated cities, aggravating, on Friday August 18, the fears for thousands of families who were recently displaced there by the fighting.

On Thursday, at nightfall, heavy weapon fire sent shivers down the spine of Al-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, 800 km from Khartoum, and the thousands of families who had recently arrived to escape the atrocities of the paramilitaries and allied Arab militiamen further west.

Since April 15, the war between General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhane’s army and General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has ravaged the capital, forced more than 4 million people to flee and caused 3 900 dead – a very underestimated figure as chaos reigns.

“The Biggest Gathering”

Long concentrated in Khartoum and certain towns in Darfur, the fighting has since spread to North Kordofan, a commercial and transport hub. Then, Thursday evening, Al-Fasher and Al-Foula, capital of Western Kordofan.

The situation is particularly worrying in Al-Fasher, where the fighting had ceased almost two months ago. “It is the largest gathering of displaced civilians with 600,000 refugees in Al-Fasher”assures AFP Nathaniel Raymond, of the American University of Yale.

Residents report to AFP that the violence resumed late Thursday. “As night fell, we heard heavy gun battles coming from the east of the city”explains one of them.

In Darfur, the conflict is now ethnic: survivors told AFP how Arab militias allied with the FSR kill civilians only because they are not Arabs and the columns of families fleeing to neighboring Chad for the luckiest or elsewhere in Darfur, now on the verge of engulfing itself.

In this vast region, the war had already wreaked havoc in 2003. The International Criminal Court (ICC), which speaks of genocide at the time, warns against a repetition of history.

Looting and burning

After atrocities likened by the UN to a “genocide” in Al-Geneina, East Darfur, the fighting is now concentrated in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, where 20,000 people recently fled the crossfire.

“We are alarmed by the indiscriminate shelling of Nyala by the army and the RSF. Every day that this senseless conflict continues, more innocent civilians are killed, injured or rendered homeless.”says the US State Department.

Further east, 800 km from Khartoum, in Al-Foula, “public buildings were burned in the exchange of fire between the FSR and the army supported by the police”reports a resident. “Shops have been looted and there are dead on both sides, but no one can access the bodies in the chaos”abounds another.

A rebel group that had signed peace with Khartoum in 2020 announced Friday that it supports the FSR in Darfur, where many Arab tribes have already announced they are joining them, and in Kordofan. This group, the Mixed Front, says it wants “Fight the remnants of the old regime who use the army to reinstate their totalitarian power”. Since the start of the war, several figures of the dictatorship of Omar Al-Bashir, deposed in 2019, have escaped from prison and have multiplied statements or appearances in support of the army.

Alarm bell

On the humanitarian level, the major organizations have regretted that the international community has paid only a quarter of the funding requested. “Our humanitarian appeals can help some 19 million people in Sudan and neighboring countries”recall the leaders of these organizations.

Another peril awaits: the rainy season that comes each year with its cohort of epidemics and destruction. Already, it has endangered the agricultural season, heightening the specter of famine.

Experts appointed by the UN have denounced “rapes” For “punish and terrorize communities”pointing the finger at the FSR, unanimously accused by the survivors.

Beyond Sudan’s borders, humanitarians are also sounding the alarm. In South Sudan, 200,000 people, “mainly women and children, who arrive exhausted and extremely vulnerable (…) need basic services: care, water, sanitation, food, shelter and protection services”says Doctors Without Borders (MSF). “We are in a terrible situation. There is no food and we live under the trees”reports Nyakiire Nen, whose 2-year-old daughter is being treated for measles by MSF.