Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) denounces the horrendous mass atrocities and killings, both indiscriminate and ethnically-targeted, that have culminated this week in and around El Fasher, Sudan.
We fear that large numbers of people remain in grave danger and are being prevented by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allies from reaching safer areas like nearby Tawila, where we work.
Massacres and summary executions in El Fasher
When El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, was seized by the RSF on October 26—after 17 months of a suffocating siege and attacks—our teams prepared to respond to a mass influx of displaced and injured people. In recent months, waves of people have fled to Tawila after each major escalation of violence in El Fasher, which, according to the UN, was still home to 260,000 people as of late August.
However, over the past five days, just over 5,000 people managed to make their way to Tawila, according to aid agencies on the ground. They describe massacres and spoke of people who remain stranded and subjected to torture, kidnappings for ransom, sexual violence, and summary executions in El Fasher, neighboring towns, and along escape routes.
What's happening in El Fasher?
- Large numbers of people are fleeing El Fasher, North Darfur, after the city was seized by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 26 following 17 months of siege and attacks.
- Survivors describe massacres, with many people remaining stranded and subject to torture, kidnappings for ransom, summary executions, and sexual violence.
- MSF calls on all diplomatic stakeholders—including the US, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt—to use their leverage to stop the bloodbath immediately.
“The arrival numbers don’t add up, while accounts of large-scale atrocities are mounting,” said Michel Olivier Lacharité, MSF head of emergencies. “Where are all the missing people who have already survived months of famine and violence in El Fasher?”
“Based on what patients tell us, the most likely—albeit frightening—answer is that they are being killed, blocked, and hunted down when trying to flee,” Lacharité said. “We urgently call on the RSF and its allied armed groups to spare civilians and allow them to reach safety. We also urge all diplomatic stakeholders—including the ‘Quad’ comprising the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt—to use their leverage to stop the bloodbath.”
People are relying on animal feed to survive
People fleeing El Fasher arrived by truck between October 26 and 28; most were women, children, and elderly people with catastrophic levels of malnutrition. Others, including gunshot victims, traveled on foot, hiding by daylight and trekking at night to avoid armed men along main roads.
Among new arrivals on October 27, every single one of the 70 children under 5 years old were acutely malnourished, with 57 percent suffering from severe acute malnutrition. The following day, our team screened 120 men arriving from El Fasher and found 20 percent to be suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
These shocking figures point to the sheer agony people in El Fasher and surrounding camps have been enduring. A state of famine was declared in the area more than a year ago and it has since been increasingly cut off from food and lifesaving supplies. People are relying on animal feed to survive.
Several eyewitnesses told MSF that a group of 500 civilians and soldiers from the Sudanese Armes Forces and Joint Forces attempted to flee on October 26, only for most to be killed or captured by the RSF and its allies. Survivors report individuals being separated by gender, age, or perceived ethnic identity, and many who remain held for ransom, with sums ranging from 5 million to 30 million Sudanese pounds ($8,000 to $50,000). One survivor said he paid 24 million Sudanese pounds ($40,000) to his captors to save his life and escape. Another reported extremely gruesome scenes of fighters crushing several prisoners with their vehicles.
MSF teams respond to new arrivals from El Fasher
MSF teams at the hospital set up a health post at the entrance to Tawila while scaling up the provision of emergency care, surgical care, and other medical services.
“Between October 26 and October 29, we received 396 injured people and treated over 700 new arrivals from El Fasher in a dedicated hospital emergency room,” said Dr Livia Tampellini, MSF’s deputy head of emergencies. “The main injuries of patients currently being treated at the hospital are gunshot wounds, fractures, and other injuries linked to beatings and torture. Some suffer from infected wounds or complications of surgical procedures already performed in El Fasher amid desperate conditions with virtually no access to medical supplies and drugs.”
Most of our Sudanese staff in Tawila have relatives who were killed in El Fasher over the week. Displaced people already present in Tawila go to meet new arrivals in the hope of recognizing a familiar face among the starving and traumatized people, or seeking news of their missing relatives.
“Given the state of people who escaped and made it barely alive to Tawila, it’s clear that they are in urgent need of medical and nutritional care, psychosocial assistance, shelter, water, and humanitarian assistance in general,” said Tampellini. "There is no more time to waste to help other survivors. They need to be allowed to move to safer areas and get lifesaving assistance.”
