War in Sudan: humanitarian teams plead for access to thousands of people stuck in El Fasher

This ordeal has reduced people to eating peanut shells and animal food, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Friday, before condemning the massacres of civilians, executions based on ethnicity and other atrocities, which should continue.

At Human Rights Council In Geneva, Mr. Türk told Member States that the bloodstains on the ground in El Fasher were visible from space.

“We warned that the fall of the city to the Rapid Support Forces would result in bloodshed,” he said. before calling for immediate international action to end the violence at a special meeting called by relevant member states. “Everyone involved in this conflict should know: we are watching you and justice must prevail. » insisted the High Commissioner.

Stuck, looking for help

According to the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCRNearly 100,000 people have fled El Fasher and neighboring villages in the last two weeks alone.

“They are stuck somewhere” said Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet, head of the agency’s sub-office in Port Sudan. Families arriving in Tawila, about 50 kilometers from El Fasher, recounted “unimaginable horrors” before and after fleeing the town, she said.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva by video, Parlevliet highlighted widespread reports of rape and sexual violence by escapees and scenes of despair.

“Parents are searching for missing children, many of them traumatized by the conflict and the dangerous journey to safety. Unable to pay ransoms, families have lost young male relatives to arrest or forced recruitment into armed groups.” » explained the UNHCR official.

Those hoping to find safety away from El Fasher face increasingly dangerous journeys bypassing military checkpoints, with some traveling for up to 15 days with limited food and water before finding refuge in places like Ad Dabbah in the Northern state.

The small town on the banks of the Nile is now home to at least 37,000 El Fasher residents and thousands more are believed to be on the way. There are also reports that armed groups are forcibly returning many people to El Fasher, where conditions are dire, UNHCR said, citing local sources.

“Thousands of people, especially the elderly, the disabled and the injured, remain stuck, either prevented from leaving the city or lacking the means or strength to flee,” Parlevliet told reporters.

A crisis of staggering proportions

Sudan has the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 12 million people uprooted inside and outside the country.

For many of those trying to return home elsewhere in the vast East African country, the threat of unexploded weapons remains enormous, according to the United Nations Mine Action ServiceUNMAS.

He noted that in South Kordofan, West Kordofan and Blue Nile states alone, 13 million square kilometers of land are contaminated.

“Many other countries are affected by explosive remnants of war and landmines…Sudan is very different. Why? Because the war is mainly taking place in urban areas,” said Sediq Rashid, head of UNMAS Sudan, speaking from Port Sudan.

He explained that in the capital, Khartoum, risks ranged from unexploded and abandoned ordnance to anti-vehicle and anti-personnel mines.

Displaced families are particularly exposed, often settling in unfamiliar places “without any awareness of past conflicts or contamination,” Mr. Rashid continued.

Meanwhile, civilian casualties from mines and other unexploded ordnance continue to rise – “and we know that the reported cases represent only a fraction of the true scale of the damage,” he said.