El-Fasher Residents Fleeing Sudan's Darfur Region Describe Horrific Scenes of War
Image Source: Internet
For 16-year-old Mounir Abderahmane, the 11-day journey to the Tine refugee transit camp in Chad was a desperate bid to escape the bloodshed in El-Fasher, Sudan. The city, once the army's last stronghold in the Darfur region, fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 26 after an 18-month siege. Abderahmane's father, a soldier in the regular army, was wounded fighting the militia. As they fled, they witnessed the horror of war firsthand. 'We heard gunshots, and I saw blood seeping out from under the door,' Abderahmane recalled, his voice cracking with emotion. The RSF, accused of atrocities alongside the army, has been locked in civil war with the Sudanese military since April 2023. The conflict has displaced nearly 12 million people and triggered the world's most extensive hunger crisis, according to the United Nations. Escapees from El-Fasher described drone attacks intensifying on October 24, just before the city fell. Locals crammed into makeshift shelters, with limited food and water. 'Every time I went up to get some air, I saw new corpses in the street,' said 53-year-old Hamid Souleymane Chogar. The RSF has been accused of using tactics reminiscent of the Janjaweed, a militia that killed thousands of people in Darfur two decades ago. Refugees reported extortion and rape at checkpoints on the roads leading out of El-Fasher, where fighters demanded cash for safe passage. The United Nations estimates nearly 90,000 people have fled El-Fasher in the past two weeks. Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is working to provide aid to the refugees, who are being relocated to reduce crowding. As one refugee, Mouna Mahamat Oumour, put it, 'We walked on without ever looking back.' The scenes of war in El-Fasher are a stark reminder of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Sudan's Darfur region.
