KHARTOUM: Heavy fighting on Saturday shook a Sudanese city besieged by Rapid Support Forces, witnesses said, as US researchers reported unprecedented and escalating combat in the North Darfur state capital.
Al-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, who have been battling the regular army since April 2023.
The UN says the war across much of Sudan has created the world’s largest displacement crisis, with millions uprooted, and has led to famine at a displacement camp near Al-Fasher.
Darfur has seen some of the war’s worst atrocities, and the RSF has besieged Al-Fasher since May.
“Neighborhoods are completely deserted, and all you can hear are explosions and missiles,” said Ibrahim Ishaq, 52.
“The central market area has become unliveable because of the intensity of the explosions,” said Ishaq, who fled westward from the city on Friday.
Witnesses reported army bombardment south and east of the city on Saturday and said they heard air-defense batteries firing.
The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab said in a report on Friday that its analysis confirmed “unprecedented large-scale combat operations” in El-Fasher within the previous 10 days, “with significant escalation in the past 36 hours” involving both the army and the paramilitary forces.
It cited reports that describe “a major multidirectional RSF attack from the northern, eastern, and southern directions” on Thursday.
Darfur Gov. Mini Minawi said on Thursday on social media platform X that the army had repelled “a large attack” by the RSF.
The paramilitaries, however, said they seized military sites in Al-Fasher.
Using satellite imagery and other data, the Yale researchers said they found munition impacts “likely related to high-tempo aerial bombardment” from the regular army but said other structural damage resulted from “RSF bombardment” and combat activity by both sides.
Whatever the battle’s outcome, current fighting levels “are likely to reduce what is left of El-Fasher to rubble effectively,” the Yale study said.
The US special envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello said on X: “We are extremely concerned about the RSF’s renewed attacks.”
He urged the RSF “to stop its assault.”
It was not immediately possible to determine the number of victims.
Sudan’s war has already killed tens of thousands of people, with some estimates as high as 150,000, according to Perriello.
In Khartoum on Saturday, around 800 km from Al-Fasher, witnesses reported heavy explosions and strikes to the city’s south.
Independent UN experts earlier this month appealed for the urgent deployment of an “impartial force” in Sudan for civilian protection.
Sudan’s foreign ministry, loyal to the army, rejected the idea.
