Khaberni - The U.S. State Department condemned the mass atrocities committed by the Rapid Support Forces in Al-Fashir, North Darfur.
It expressed deep concern for the safety of civilians within the city and those fleeing to neighboring areas, calling on the Rapid Support Forces to refrain from engaging in retaliatory acts and ethnic violence.
Washington confirmed its ongoing efforts with partners to find a peaceful path forward and urged both parties to pursue a negotiation path to end the suffering of the Sudanese people.
Doctors Without Borders expressed on Saturday its fear that thousands of civilians are trapped in the Sudanese city of Al-Fashir, facing imminent danger after the Rapid Support Forces took control, while new satellite images showed that massacres were still ongoing in the capital of North Darfur state.
In the context of the war that erupted in April 2023 between the army led by Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the Rapid Support Forces took control of the city of Al-Fashir on Sunday, the last stronghold of the army in the Darfur region which covers a third of the area of Sudan after an 18-month siege.
Since the fall of the city, there have been ongoing reports of field executions, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting, and kidnappings, while communications have been largely cut off.
Survivors who reached the nearby town of Tawila told Agence France-Presse about mass killings, shootings at children in front of their parents, and beating and looting of civilians trying to flee.
Adam, a father of six boys and two girls who arrived in Tawila on Thursday morning, said two of his sons, aged 17 and 21, were killed in front of him.
He recounted, "They told them, 'You were fighting (with the army)' and they beat me with a stick on my back, the marks (of the beating) are still there... I can't sleep on my back." He added, "They saw my sons' blood on my clothes so they questioned me and said I was fighting."
After hours, they allowed him to leave.
Zahra, a mother of six, said, "We left Al-Fashir on Saturday when the strikes intensified, and before we reached Kurni, they stopped us and took two of my sons, one aged 20 and the other 16. I begged them to let them go" but the fighters only released the younger son.
Hussein, a young man with a leg fracture due to a shrapnel injury while he was in Al-Fashir, said, "My father was killed on the day I was injured. I left with my mother and neighbors, they stopped me and said I was a soldier. After my mother pleaded with them, they let us go. On the way, we saw many bodies and people injured left on their own."
The United Nations said more than 65,000 people have fled the city of Al-Fashir since Sunday, but tens of thousands are still trapped there, while the city was home to about 260,000 inhabitants before the recent attack by the Rapid Support Forces.
Doctors Without Borders clarified that "large numbers of civilians still face severe danger and are prevented from reaching safer areas by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies."
The organization added that only about five thousand people managed to reach the town of Tawila, located about 70 kilometers west of the city.
The head of the emergency department at the organization, Michel Olivier Lacharité, said, "The number of arrivals in Tawila does not match the scale of the disaster, as testimonies about widespread atrocities are increasing."
He asked, "Where are all the missing who survived months of hunger and violence in Al-Fashir?", adding, "The most likely and horrifying possibility at the same time is that they are being killed or hunted while trying to flee."
