Fighting In Darfur Rises, UN Says 2 Million People Can Evacuate From Sudan

Screenshot of Sudanese refugee camps in Chad. (Wikimedia Commons/VOA/Henry Wilkins)

JAKARTA - The United Nations said 2 million people had been displaced due to the ongoing conflict in Sudan, as the agency's official warned an escalating attack on Darfur could be a "crime against humanity."

Sudan has fallen into turmoil since mid-April when months of tensions between the government military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) military exploded into open fighting in the capital Khartoum and elsewhere in the northeastern African country.

Fighting continues relentlessly Wednesday in parts of the capital and western region of Darfur, both of which have witnessed some of the worst fighting. At least 959 civilians were killed and about 4,750 others injured as of June 12, according to the Sudanese Doctors Syndicate, which tracks civilian casualties, reported by the Daily Sabah June 16.

Brutal clashes have forced more than 1.6 million people to flee their homes to safer areas within Sudan, according to the International Organization for Migration. Meanwhile, another 530,000 skitar fled to neighboring countries such as Egypt, South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic and Libya, the agency said.

Meanwhile, the medical group said the number of victims could be much higher, given those killed or injured in ongoing clashes in Genena, the capital of West Darfur Province, could not be counted. City hospitals have been out of service since fighting erupted there in April, the group said.

Residents in all provinces in Sudan are known to have fled. Khartoum is at the top with about 65 percent of the total number of displaced people, followed by West Darfur with more than 17 percent according to the IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix.

In Genena, the capital of West Darfur province, RSF and Arab militia allies have been raging in the city over the past week, killing and injuring hundreds of people, according to local activists and UN officials.

Activists and residents in Genena reported dozens of women being sexually assaulted inside their homes and while trying to escape the fighting. Nearly all cases of rape were blamed on RSF, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

West Darfur Provincial Governor Khamis Abdalla Abkar accused RSF and allied militias of attacking local communities across Genena.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday with Saudi Arabia's Al-Hadath television station, he urged the international community to intervene to protect civilians in his province.

Hours after his interview with the television station, Abkar was kidnapped and killed, said Mini Arko Minawi, governor of the Darfur region. It was not immediately clear how Abkar was kidnapped and killed.

Video footage circulating on social media late Wednesday showed a group of armed men, some wearing RSF uniforms, detaining Abkar. Another night's footage is said to show Abkar lying on the ground with wounds on his neck and face. The gunshots were heard as people shouted in Arabic, "This is the governor,".

Separately, the UN envoy in Sudan Volker Perthes said fighting in Genena had taken "ethnic dimensions," with Arab militias and RSF-uniformed gunmen showing "a large-scale targeted attack pattern emerging against civilians based on their ethnic identities".

"Such attacks, if verified, could be crimes against humanity," he warned.

Meanwhile, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, UN's special adviser to genocide prevention, also condemned Genena's "surprising violence". She warned in a statement that such fighting could turn into a "new campaign for rape, murder, and ethnic cleansing that constitutes a cruel crime."