Sudan activists urge Red Cross to help evacuate Tuti residents

The Khartoum Resistance Committees have appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) “to intervene immediately” and monitor the evacuation of the people living in Tuti Island, invaded by revengeful RSF paramilitaries.

The Khartoum city’s resistance committees earlier this week called on the ICRC “to intervene immediately and urgently to supervise the evacuation” of the remaining inhabitants of Tuti Island in Khartoum.

Tuti, located between the three cities of Khartoum state, has been besieged by the RSF since the outbreak of war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April last year.

After recent army victories, angry paramilitaries fled to the island and are revengefully assaulting the remaining residents. They hardly dare to leave their homes to get water or search for medicines in the neighbourhood. ‘The smell of death is everywhere,’ desperate residents told journalist Sumeya El Matba’ji of El Alag Centre last week.

In an Urgent Humanitarian Appeal on Monday, the Khartoum Resistance Committees stated in that the people of Tuti Island “are held hostage by the RSF who subject them to forced labour and keep them as human shields”.

The paramilitaries “prevent them from leaving the island and impose exorbitant sums of money on them in exchange allowing them to move to a safer place”.

The activist grassroots committees that emerged during the December 2018 Revolution and “played an incredibly important part in Sudan’s pro-democracy movement ever since” condemn the RSF for “involving innocent civilians in battles to use them as human shields” – “which has become an approach followed by the Rapid Support Militia.

“The siege of cities to tighten the noose on their residents has become part of the immoral war strategies,” the joint resistance committees state.

“This war has no customs or laws governing it with regard to protecting civilians and volunteers who are still being subjected to violations, assaults and kidnappings without knowing their fate. These violations are committed by both parties to the war without exception.”

In October last year, Sudan’s Emergency Lawyers called for an end to the RSF blockade of food transport to the besieged residential areas of Tuti Island. In May, SIHA Network called on the RSF to immediately end the siege on Tuti Island.