At least 12 civilians were murdered in clashes between competing Sudanese generals in Darfur on Sunday, according to a medic in the devastated area.
The doctor reported that violence in South Darfur state had resulted in “a provisional toll of 12 civilian deaths in Nyala” while speaking from the state’s capital.
However, the source said that “the violence of the fighting restricts movement” of casualties to hospitals while remaining nameless for security concerns.
Residents in Nyala reported fighting on Saturday, including shelling and artillery strikes.
The bloodiest fighting in the struggle for control between army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, paramilitary commander of the Rapid Support Forces Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has taken place in Darfur, a huge western region on the border with Chad.
According to the UN, the conflict in Darfur has a “ethnic dimension” and may amount to “crimes against humanity.”
The Janjaweed militias that former strongman Omar al-Bashir unleashed in response to an uprising by ethnic minorities in Darfur in 2003 gave rise to accusations of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. These Janjaweed forces are where Daglo’s RSF got their start.
According to a recent death toll from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, there have been close to 2,800 fatalities in Sudan since fighting started in the country’s capital Khartoum on April 15.
According to the International Organization for Migration, about 2 million additional people have been displaced within the nation and about 600,000 have fled across the border into neighboring countries.
The U.N. called for “immediate action” on Saturday to stop Arab militias assisted by the paramilitaries from killing residents fleeing El Geneina, the capital of the West Darfur state.
The US State Department said in mid-June that up to 1,100 people had died in El Geneina.
Several bodies were found face down on what seemed to be a dirt road, while other bodies were left laying in the streets. Shops have been ransacked by thieves.
There is a rocket fall
Families travel 30 kilometers (18 miles) across the pandemonium to the neighboring country of Chad, where more than 155,000 people have sought sanctuary.
In Adre, across the border, refugees assemble in large queues to collect food and water under tarpaulins draped over trees.
According to the U.N., aid has reached at least 2.8 million people in Sudan, but organizations report facing significant obstacles in their work, including difficulties securing safe passageways and obtaining visas for foreign humanitarians.
At a conference in Geneva last week, international donors committed $1.5 billion in relief, which is less than half the amount anticipated to be required for Sudan and its afflicted countries.
The United States announced Thursday that it had suspended its efforts to arbitrate between the warring parties and ensure that humanitarian aid may reach those in need. Saudi Arabia and the United States had also sought to do this.
The capital Khartoum has served as the war’s primary theater of combat outside of Darfur. Air raids by the military have increased there, and army and police bases are being hit by RSF artillery.
Water and electricity are in low supply for those city dwellers who are still there.
On Sunday, a few of them reported fighting and artillery fire in the south of the city.
“Rockets are falling on the houses,” a witness in Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city, told AFP.
