Khartoum : Artillery shelling renewed on Monday in the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries. This comes after the most violent clashes of its kind in the city in recent days, while the Sudanese army and the joint force of the armed movements said they forced the Rapid Support Forces to retreat after inflicting heavy losses.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been carrying out heavy artillery operations continuously since Monday morning, targeting residential neighborhoods, said the Resistance Committees co-ordinations in the city of El Fasher, capital of North Darfur state, noting that most of the victims were women, children and the elderly.
The RSF was accused of targeting residential neighborhoods to force civilians to leave the city, noting that residents are clinging to their homes and that they are steadfast in the trenches they dug under their homes, in order to protect them from the intensity of artillery shelling directed at them.
Artillery shelling targeted areas southeast of El Fasher, she said, calling on citizens to take caution and not to approach windows and close the doors of houses. As fighting rages around El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, fears are mounting that the “Great Battle of El Fasher” will return Sudan’s western Darfur region to civil war.
The governor of the Darfur region, Minni Arko Minawi, has warned of large-scale recruitment, which he said the Rapid Support Forces are carrying out to mobilize mercenaries from West Africa. He accused the RSF leaders of luring mercenaries to loot and invade the city of El Fasher, calling for a general alert in the city in order to “defend lives and property.”
Meanwhile, Sudanese civilian forces and the international community continue to call on the warring parties not to target civilian gathering areas with airstrikes, artillery shelling, mine-laying and other military activities amid warnings that the situation is moving towards the point of no return.
El Fasher is the army’s last stronghold in Darfur after the RSF took control of four of the region’s five states. A number of Darfuri movements loyal to the army – the joint force of armed movements – which consider the RSF a historic adversary are massing in the city.
The spokesman for the joint forces of the armed movements, Major Ahmed Hussein Adrup, in his speech to “Al-Quds Al-Arabi”, expected that the rapid support attacks on El Fasher will continue, stressing their readiness to repel those attacks and move forward. He said that the operational situation in the city of El Fasher is proceeding excellently, stressing that the army and the joint force of armed movements have inflicted successive defeats on the Rapid Support Forces over the past days, and pointed to the recent killing of a number of Rapid Support Forces leaders.
Despite this, Adrup expects a repeat of the RSF attacks, stressing their readiness and readiness to advance towards what he said are the RSF dens. “The best way to defend is attack.” He called for the classification of the RSF and “mercenaries” in whose ranks he said they were fighting a terrorist organization, accusing them of committing serious violations.
The following leaks about the existence of differences between the army and the armed movements amid demands to withdraw from El Fasher and that these differences have reached the stage of clash between the two sides, the spokesman for the joint force of the armed movements said that everything that is circulating in particular is unfounded, adding: “Such rumors come out of the media rooms of the Rapid Support Forces and the rooms of their political allies and we do not pay any attention to them.”
He continued: “The Sudanese Armed Forces, the Joint Force of the Armed Struggle Movements, the People’s Self-Defense Force “Qishn” and the popular resistance in El Fasher are united in order to defeat the rapid support in El Fasher and the rest of the cities of the Darfur region.”
He continued: “Our slogan in El Fasher and in the rest of the cities of the Darfur region and other Sudanese cities is that no voice is louder than the voice of the homeland. El Fasher did not and will not fall. “The dreams of the militias and their allies, mercenaries and sponsors will not come true.”
The army and the joint forces are continuing to implement a plan to remove the RSF from all cities in the Darfur region, he said, accusing the RSF of blocking the road to commercial vehicles and looting and impounding all humanitarian convoys coming to El Fasher. The RSF recently looted a humanitarian convoy in al-Kuma locality and a WHO convoy unloaded in Mellit locality, he said, as well as detaining an MSF convoy in Kabkabiya locality that was on its way to the Zamzam camp for displaced people carrying food and medicine for the camp’s children.
Most of the aid coming through the Adri border crossing has been looted, he said, accusing the RSF of bringing in things other than humanitarian aid — a reference to military support. As military fighting escalates in El Fasher, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkwita Salami, expressed her “deep sadness and frustration at the ongoing armed violence wreaking havoc in the city of El Fasher in North Darfur.”
She said in a statement on Monday that what is happening in El Fasher is tragic and must stop, adding: “There is no justification for direct attacks on civilians, their assets and their basic facilities such as hospitals.”
She warned of an escalation of widespread fighting, threatening the lives of thousands of people, especially in camps for internally displaced people, citing reports that healthcare facilities have been affected. “These attacks in El Fasher violate all humanitarian principles.”
The ongoing conflict is destroying lives, livelihoods and basic infrastructure, El Fasher is home to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people at risk of famine, including Zamzam camp where famine has been confirmed. The public health system has been devastated by the ongoing conflict, with many facilities destroyed, looted or abandoned, leaving more than five million people without access to healthcare services.
“The heinous attacks show the futility of armed violence in El Fasher,” the UN official said, calling on all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and ensure that civilians are protected from harm.
Source: First appeared in Arabic on “Al-Quds Al-Arabi“,
