GENEVA — The UN rights chief sounded the alarm Thursday over intensifying fighting for control of the Sudanese city of El-Fasher, warning of likely ethnically-targeted violence if it falls to the paramilitaries besieging it.
“The fighting must stop at once. Enough is enough,” Volker Turk said in a statement.
El-Fasher is one of five state capitals in Sudan’s western Darfur region and the only one not in the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been battling Sudan’s SAF regular army since April 2023.
Darfur, a region the size of France and home to around a quarter of Sudan’s population, is deeply scarred by years of ethnic violence committed by the Janjaweed — the militia from which the RSF emerged.
The RSF launched an offensive last weekend in El-Fasher, a city of some two million people, after a months-long siege.
“From bitter past experience, if El-Fasher falls, there is a high risk of ethnically-targeted violations and abuses, including summary executions and sexual violence, by the RSF and allied militia,” Turk warned.
In particular, he highlighted concerns for residents of the Abu Shouk and Zamzam camps for internally displaced people.
“People in those camps are at grave risk of retaliatory attacks based on their tribal identity, real or perceived, as coming from the same communities as leaders of armed movements aligned with the SAF,” the rights chief said.
