Displaced children injured in North Darfur battles

Four children in the Abu Shouk camp for the displaced near the North Darfur capital of El Fasher were injured in fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) over the city on Sunday. On Thursday, at least four camp residents were killed by artillery shells.

On Sunday evening, shells landed on the Salam Khamsa school shelter and adjacent houses. Two houses burned to ashes, activist Ismail Khareef reported to Radio Dabanga.

Four children sustained injuries and had to be taken to the El Fasher’s Southern Hospital.

He said that missiles killed at least four people and wounded 16 others in the camp on Thursday. “The violence in the area is extreme these days,” he said.

“Clashes between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF in El Fasher continue on and off,” he explained. “In some places, it is worse. The fighting has displaced most of the residents of the nearby Abuja camp.”

Rebel leader and former member of the Sovereignty Council El Hadi Idris* called on both warring parties to evacuate El Fasher and “leave the task of protecting the city to the Darfur Joint Forces”, made up of rebel combatants.

The newly appointed* acting governor of North Darfur, Hafiz Bakheet, said in his address to a new batch of graduates of the 271 Air Defence Brigade of the 6th Infantry Division in El Fasher yesterday that “the state of North Darfur is safe, thanks to God and the effort of the men of the regular forces”.  

Former leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Sudanese Finance Minister Jibril** said during a graduation ceremony of a group of JEM forces in Kassala in eastern Sudan that in case of the RSF’s occupation of El Fasher, “they will find us in front of them”.

El Fasher is the only Darfur capital that is not under control of the RSF, which occupied Nyala and Zalingei in late October, and El Geneina and Ed Daein a month later.

Battles

SAF-RSF fighting already occurred in El Fasher since the start of the war in mid-April last year. In end April, the SAF gained control over the city, prompting RSF’s retreat to El Malha and the camps for the displaced northeast of the city. The then North Darfur Governor Nimir Abdelrahman, a former rebel leader, managed, together with native administration leaders, police officers, and civil society activists, to make the warring parties in the region agree on a ceasefire and extend it more than once.

Following this period, the North Darfur capital witnessed fighting again. The RSF seized control of the eastern parts of the city, while the SAF fortified their hold over the western parts. Fighting continued on and off in the following months.

Security conditions began to deteriorate rapidly in El Fasher in late October as the RSF intensified pressure on the four other Darfur state capitals. The RSF in the east and northeast of El Fasher began wreaking havoc, until the situation exploded, and violent clashes erupted again between the two parties on October 26.

The fighting led to mass displacement. An estimated 85 per cent of the population left the northern neighbourhoods, either leaving for safer areas in the south of El Fasher or fleeing to Mellit or even Libya.

Renewed SAF-RSF battles erupted last month, again prompting fears that rebel combatants would get involved in the fighting. The RSF taking full control of the city would reportedly also ignite strife between the Arab tribes supporting the RSF, and the Zaghawa tribe, from which most North Darfur rebel fighters hail, and lead to a “catastrophic bloodbath” in the area.

* Abdelfattah El Burhan, SAF commander-in-chief and president of the Sovereignty Council dismissed El Hadi Idris as council member in November last year. Acting Minister of Animal Resources and Fisheries Hafez Abdelnabi was also removed from his position. The reason was that they are not supporting the war and prefer to remain neutral. El Burhan reportedly said that anyone who does not support the SAF must be an ally of the RSF and cannot be a Sudanese. Nimir Abdelrahman, acting governor of North Darfur and former rebel leader, was sacked by El Burhan more than two months ago for the same reason.

** In August last year, the JEM ousted its president, Jibril Ibrahim, and chose Suleiman Sandal as his successor. Ibrahim was accused of obstructing attempts to elect a new leader. Following his election, Sandal admitted that JEM‘s participation in the military coup of October 25, 2021, was a mistake. Ibrahim last year expressed his support of the army and remained in his position as federal Minister of Finance.