GLOBAL TODAY

Tag: Sudan

  • Sudan’s paramilitaries kill over 30 in a fresh attack on a Darfur city, activists say

    CAIRO – Sudan’s notorious paramilitary group attacked a city in the western Darfur region, killing more than 30 people, an activist group said, in the latest deadly offensive on an area that is home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

    The Rapid Support Forces and allied militias launched an offensive on el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, on Sunday, the Resistance Committees in the city said. Dozens of other people were wounded in the attack, said the group, which tracks the war.

    There was no immediate comment from the RSF.

    El-Fasher, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, is under the control of the military, which has fought the RSF since Sudan descended into civil war more than two years ago, killing more than than 24,000 people, according to the United Nations, though activists say the number is likely far higher.

    The RSF has been attempting to seize el-Fasher for a year to complete its control of the entire Darfur region. Since then, it has launched many attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts.

    The city is now estimated to be home to more than 1 million people, many of whom have been displaced by the ongoing war and previous bouts of violence in Darfur. The RSF grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias, mobilized two decades ago by then-president Omar al-Bashir against populations that identify as Central or East African in Darfur. The Janjaweed were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities.

    The attacks on el-Fasher have intensified in recent months as the RSF suffered battlefield setbacks in Khartoum and other urban areas in the county’s east and center.

    Sunday’s attack came less than a week after a two-day attack by the RSF and its allied militias on the city and the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps killed more than 400 people, according to the United Nations.

    Last week’s attack forced up to 400,000 people to flee the Zamzam camp, Sudan’s largest, which has become inaccessible to aid workers, said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

    AP

  • Over 16 killed in paramilitary shelling on displacement camp in W. Sudan: NGO

    KHARTOUM – More than 16 people were killed and 25 others injured in an artillery shelling on Thursday by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a displacement camp in western Sudan, the non-governmental organization the Sudanese Doctors Network said in a statement.

    It said the RSF launched “a deliberate artillery strike” on Abu Shouk displacement camp in El Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur State.

    Meanwhile, the volunteer group Emergency Room said the deaths were more than 15, while the injuries were 25.

    The RSF has yet to comment on the incident.

    Also on Thursday, the RSF said in a statement that it has “established full control over the strategic locality of Um Kadada” in North Darfur State, killed “hundreds of” fighters from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and captured “fully equipped combat vehicles, as well as various weapons and ammunition” belonging to the SAF.

    So far, the SAF has not commented on the RSF’s claim of capturing Um Kadada, located some 178 km southeast of El Fasher.

    Sudan has been embroiled in a devastating conflict between the SAF and the RSF since mid-April 2023, which has claimed at least 29,683 lives, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a crisis monitoring group cited by the United Nations.

    The conflict has displaced over 15 million people, both inside and outside Sudan, according to estimates from the International Organization for Migration.

    XINHUA

  • UNICEF warns 825,000 children trapped in battle around North Darfur

    Displaced Sudanese girls, who fled the Zamzam camp, look on as they gather near the town of Tawila in North Darfur on February 14, 2025. (AFP/File)

    NEW YORK – At least 825,000 Sudanese children are trapped by fighting around the beleaguered state capital of North Darfur, threatened by violence or starvation, UNICEF has warned.

    “We cannot turn a blind eye to this hell on earth,” said Sheldon Yett, the UN children’s agency representative for Sudan, demanding an end to the conflict.

    “An estimated 825,000 children are trapped in a growing catastrophe in and around Al-Fasher,” said Yett, adding that more than 70 children have been killed or maimed this year.

    “With these numbers reflecting only verified incidents, it is likely the true toll is far higher, with children in a daily struggle to survive,” he said.

    In North Darfur, more than 60,000 people have been displaced in the past six weeks, adding to the more than 600,000 displaced — including 300,000 children — since the war started in April 2023.

    A few weeks ago, Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, and the UN World Food Programme suspended their work in a vast displaced people’s camp in Zamzam, just south of El-Fasher.

    UNICEF, however, continues to operate there and in the city itself, but food supplies are expected to run out within weeks.

    “UNICEF delivered ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTF and other lifesaving supplies to Al-Fasher three months ago, but these stocks are now depleted,” Yett said.

    “Repeated efforts by UNICEF and partners to deliver more supplies have been unsuccessful given threats from armed fighters and criminal gangs.”

    AN-AFP

  • UNHCR suspends aid to refugees in Egypt over lack of funding

    CAIRO – The United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday a lack of funding was forcing it to suspend vital aid to refugees in Egypt, including medical care for many fleeing war-torn Sudan.

    “The lack of available funds and deep uncertainty over the level of donor contributions this year has forced UNHCR to suspend all medical treatment for refugees in Egypt except emergency life-saving procedures, affecting around 20,000 patients,” the UN agency said in a statement.

    This includes cancer treatment, heart surgeries, and medication for high blood pressure and diabetes.

    UNHCR public health officer Jakob Arhem said that without the agency’s services, some patients “will not be able to find the means to pay for health care themselves and they will get sicker, weaker and many will die”.

    The agency last year received less than half of the $135 million needed to assist more than 939,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers from Sudan and 60 other countries currently residing in Egypt.

    “The drastic reduction in humanitarian funding since the start of this year has led to critical shortages, forcing UNHCR to make impossible choices over which life-saving programmes to suspend or maintain,” the statement said, noting that Sudanese refugees will be the hardest hit.

    Egypt has hosted more than 1.5 million Sudanese, some 670,000 of whom are registered with UNHCR, as war rages in the neighbouring country since April 2023 between the army and paramilitaries.

    “The Sudanese health system was one of the first things that collapsed after the onset of fighting, and many of the families who fled did so with sick members who could no longer find treatment in Sudan,” Arhem said.

    UNHCR has supported some the most vulnerable, including unaccompanied children and survivors of sexual violence and torture, but these programmes are at risk without urgent funding.

    AN-AFP, 25.3.2025

  • Clashes displace 15,000 families in Sudan’s North Darfur: UN

    A handout photograph, shot in January 2024, shows women and babies at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to al-Fashir in North Darfur, Sudan. (REUTERS)

    KHARTOUM – Fighting in Sudan’s war-torn North Darfur state displaced around “15,000 households” from the town of Al-Malha within 48 hours, the United Nations’ migration agency said Monday.

    From Thursday to Friday, the clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army and its allied militias forced the families to flee “primarily to other locations” within the same area, said the International Organization for Migration.

    Since April 2023, the war between the RSF and the army has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted over 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.

    In North Darfur alone, nearly 1.7 million people are displaced and around two million people face extreme food insecurity, according to UN figures.

    The RSF claimed on Thursday to have seized Al-Malha, which lies at the foot of a mountainous region 200 kilometers (124 miles) northeast of the North Darfur state capital El-Fasher.

    At least 45 civilians were killed in the attack, according to a toll shared by activists in El-Fasher.

    In their statement, the RSF said they had “encircled the enemy… leaving more than 380 dead” in Al-Malha.

    The town is one of the northernmost urban centers in the vast desert between Sudan and Libya, where the RSF and an army-allied coalition of armed groups known as the Joint Forces have battled for months.

    El-Fasher is the only state capital still under the control of the army, which this week recaptured the presidential palace in Khartoum, some 800 kilometers away.

    Following months of army gains in central Sudan, analysts say the RSF is determined to consolidate its hold on Darfur, where the Joint Forces have intercepted key supply lines from Chad and Libya since last year.

    North Darfur is facing one of Sudan’s worst mass starvation crises, with famine already declared in three displacement camps around El-Fasher.

    According to UN projections, it is expected to spread to five more areas, including the state capital itself, by May.

    AN-AFP