The Tragic Fate Of Sudanese Who Escaped The RSF Massacre

JAKARTA - At a clinic in North Darfur, Sudan, where dozens of thin children lay in folding beds and men with bandaged wounds waiting for surgery, patients told of their desperate escape from the city of al-Fashir (El Fasher) which was seized last week by paramilitary forces.

They were among about 10,000 people who arrived in the city of Tawila after fleeing the al-Fashir race by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and are now being treated at a clinic managed by the international aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

Al-Fashir, who was hit by hunger, was the last stronghold of Sudanese soldiers in the vast western Darfur region before falling to the RSF after an 18-month siege.

Witnesses reported mass killings following the takeover of RSF and the missing many al-Fashir residents.

Diulas Reuters, Wednesday, November 5, the city's seizure marked a turning point in the two and a half-year war between the RSF and the army. The suspension has cut off food supplies, forcing many local residents to eat animal feed as they seek protection from drones and shootings.

In addition to those who reached Tawila, more than 60,000 others are believed to have fled the al-Fashir, according to the International Organization for Migration, although their presence is unclear.

As many as 200,000 people may still be trapped inside the city, according to an estimated city population towards the end of the siege.

The RSF leadership has asked its fighters to protect civilians and said violations would be prosecuted. Human rights groups and US officials accused RSF and its allied militias of ethnic cleansing in Darfur at the start of the conflict.

The dire condition inside the al-Fashir hospital was described by two patients at the MSF clinic, in a report obtained by a local journalist who had previously provided verified material for Reuters.

One of the patients, who claimed to be Fatuma, said he was trusted to care for three orphans when their parents and brother were killed by a drone strike when they took food.

The youngest, a thin baby who was only 40 days old, cried in his arms.

Her younger sister, who was sitting nearby, suffered a leg wound when a shrapnel hit her as she ran into the shelter.

Fatuma took the boys out of town on branded trains with other people who were injured just before al-Fashir fell, but he met RSF soldiers on the street.

"They forced us to put the baby on the ground and forced us all to lie down, then take everything we had," he said. He finally managed to take the baby to the MSF clinic.

BAD EXPENSES AND GIZIES

About 170 other children arrived in Tawila without companions, said Syl totaling Penicaud, MSF project coordinator. All children examined by the agency are malnourished.

"People come in very thin conditions," he said. On Monday, global hunger monitors found conditions in al-Fashir had been starving before its fall, a condition expected to continue until January.

Mouna Hanebali, another member of the MSF team, said the clinic received nearly 1,000 trauma cases originating from on-road attacks, but also from within the al-Fashir.

The city's latest hospital has been under constant scrutiny and lack of antibiotics and cassava, which causes unstable fractures and infectious wounds, requiring re-operation.

The second patient, Abdallah, said he had fled the al-Fashir amid intense gunfire and shootings on the day of the takeover.

"People go in chaos, bring the kids, some with thrust carts, some withubled carts, some on foot," he said.

"No one is walking without being injured, everyone is injured," he said.