The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) expressed grave concern on Friday over the fate of tens of thousands of individuals who fled the city of al-Fashir in Sudan’s Darfur region, with a massive discrepancy between the numbers who left and those who have been accounted for at safer locations.
The alarm was sounded just weeks after the city, the final bastion of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Western Darfur, was seized by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 26 following an intense 18-month siege.
Missing Displaced Persons Raise Security Fears While the UNHCR has registered that nearly 100,000 people have been displaced since the city’s fall, only approximately 10,000 have been officially counted at known reception points, such as the town of Tawila.
Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet, UNHCR’s Head of Sub Office speaking from Port Sudan, noted that the vast majority of these displaced persons are “stranded somewhere,” unable to complete their journeys due to acute safety risks.
“A significant number of people on the move are stranded somewhere, not able to move further, because of the danger, or because they risk being sent back into al-Fashir, or because there are very vulnerable people amongst the group,” Parlevliet stated at a Geneva press briefing.
Reports from those who managed to escape paint a horrific picture of the situation in al-Fashir, including credible accounts of rape, killings, and systematic abuses committed by fighting forces, alongside drone strikes and civilians being shot in the streets.
The displacement routes themselves are becoming longer and more dangerous, with civilians avoiding main roads and armed checkpoints by traversing remote, perilous terrain. Some have been forced to travel up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) to reach relative safety in places like Ad Dabba in Northern State.Humanitarian Catastrophe and Shifting Conflict.
The mass displacement is compounded by a severe famine gripping the region, a dire consequence of the sustained conflict that has obliterated livelihoods and access to humanitarian aid. Field reports from Darfur describe desperate measures for survival, including women resorting to foraging for wild leaves and berries to make soup.
The UNHCR also reports that thousands remain inside al-Fashir, trapped either by a lack of means, physical frailty, or being actively prevented from leaving by armed groups.
The main front lines of the conflict have now shifted eastward. Fighting is escalating in the region of Kordofan, which serves as a critical buffer zone between the RSF’s established strongholds in Darfur and the states held by the SAF in the east of Sudan.
This geographical shift has led to fears of a further wave of displacement.
“We are concerned that in Kordofan the further escalation of the conflict may also lead to further displacement,” Parlevliet added, emphasizing the regional threat to civilian safety.
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Source:Africa Publicity
