The Sudanese city of El Fasher, located in the western Darfur region, has become an “epicenter for children’s suffering”, written UN organization Unicef Tuesday. Of the 260,000 inhabitants of the city, half is a child – and because the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are besieged the city for more than sixteen months, children have to deal with malnutrition, illness and violence.
“We witness a devastating tragedy,” says Unicef director Catherine Russell. “Children in El Fasher starve while the life -saving food aid of UNICEF is blocked.” For example, the organization writes that around six thousand children cannot be treated for serious and acute malnutrition. Cholera is raging throughout the country, which is most serious in the refugee camps in Darfur.
Last Sunday the RSF attacked a group of people on a road near El Fasher, and killed thirteen people. Among them were mainly women and children, writes AP news agency. The Sudan Doctors Network aid organization called the attack “ethnically motivated”. Organizations including Human Rights Watch have been saying since 2023 that RSF is committed in Darfur: Together with Allied militias, the rebels want to drive away Masalit people and the other non-Arab communities from the region. The US also accused RSF at the beginning of this year of genocide.
UNICEF calls on the Sudanese government to insert a humanitarian break so that the residents of El Fasher can get help. Attempts to make peace between the government army and the RSF have all failed since the start of the war in the spring of 2023. According to the UN, more than one hundred thousand people were killed during “the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time”. Millions of people fled their homes.
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