TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The death toll from the massacre in Al Fasher City, North Darfur Province, Sudan, has risen to 2,200 after the city was seized by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rebels on October 26.
Meanwhile, more than 390,000 people have been forced to flee, said Sudan's pro-government Liberation Army spokesperson, Agad bin Kony, to RIA Novosti on Thursday as quoted by Antara.
He stated that the death toll has risen to 2,227 people, including children, women, and the elderly.
Several reports indicate that over 393,000 people have left Al Fasher City in the past four days.
El Fasher, the last stronghold of the Sudanese army in the vast Darfur region, has been intensely besieged by RSF since last year.
The civil war in Sudan, now entering its third year, involves the Sudanese army and RSF. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, caused millions to flee, and pushed most of the Sudanese regions to the brink of famine, despite repeated calls for a ceasefire by the UN and regional mediators.
Bodies Scattered in the Streets
The RSF attack has led families to hide in trenches, bodies lie in the streets, and children killed in front of their parents. This happened as Sudanese paramilitaries, allegedly backed by the UAE, advanced into El Fasher in the west, as revealed by survivors as quoted by Arab News.
More than 36,000 civilians have fled the city since Sunday, when RSF seized the last stronghold of the army in the Darfur region, triggering warnings from the UN and humanitarian groups about the possibility of mass murder and ethnic cleansing.
Some have sought refuge in Tawila, a city about 70 kilometers to the west that has accommodated around 650,000 displaced people.
In a satellite phone interview, three survivors who arrived in Tawila described the terror and loss during their escape from the city besieged by RSF for 18 months. They were cut off from food, medicine, and other aid.
Their stories resemble those of survivors of the mass massacres in Darfur in the early 2000s, when the Janjaweed militia-accused of committing genocide there and later became the RSF-burned villages, killed around 300,000 people, and displaced 2.7 million others.
The full names of the survivors are withheld for their safety.
- Hayat, mother of five: 'They killed my 16-year-old son' -
"On Saturday at 6 am, the shelling was extremely heavy. I took my children and hid with them in a trench. We haven’t heard from my husband for six months.
“After about an hour, seven RSF fighters entered our house. They took my phone, searched even my undergarments, and killed my 16-year-old son. We fled with many people from our neighborhood.
“On the road between El-Fasher and Garni (a village northwest of the city), we saw many dead bodies lying on the ground and wounded people left behind in the open because their families couldn’t carry them. Along the way, we were robbed again and the young men traveling with us were stopped. We don’t know what happened to them.”
- Hussein, a wounded survivor of the shooting: 'Bodies scattered in the streets' -
"The situation in El-Fasher is so terrible — dead bodies in the streets, and no one to bury them. We’re grateful we made it here, even if we only have the clothes we were wearing. Here, we finally feel some safety. I went to the clinic and they checked my leg."
- Mohamed, father of four: 'Corpses turned to bones' -
"I used to live in the Zamzam camp (for displaced people). When the RSF entered the camp, I fled to El-Fasher and stayed in the Abu Shouk neighborhood. The fighting on Saturday was extremely heavy — my four daughters, their mother and I spent the entire day hiding in a trench until dawn on Sunday."
"We left before sunrise and walked to Garni. Along the way, they robbed my money and stopped the young men to take it. I saw bodies, some had turned into skeletons."
"We just want the war to end so we can go back home."
- Emtithal Mahmoud, 32, living in the US: 'Recognized my cousin from a video' -
“It is almost impossible to describe the feeling that we’re feeling right now as people from Darfur. A lot of our family members are still trapped in the city. We don’t know who’s dead or alive."
“We have videos and reports of people being killed. It’s so terrible because even in the videos that the RSF is sharing, gloating as they commit a continuation of the genocide since the early 2000s, we’re recognizing our family members and friends. We found out that one of our cousins was killed because of a video that was circulating."
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