Traumatized residents of Sudan’s newly seized el-Fasher are struggling to survive without water, sanitation or reliable food supplies in a famine-stricken city, the result of its capture by paramilitary forces, U.N. aid coordinator Denise Brown told AFP on Monday.
El-Fasher fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in October after more than 500 days of siege and last Friday a small U.N. humanitarian team was able to make its first short visit in almost two years.
Mass atrocities, including massacres, torture and sexual violence, reportedly accompanied the capture of the city. Satellite pictures reviewed by AFP show what appear to be mass graves.
Brown described the city as a "crime scene," but said human rights experts would carry out investigations while her office focuses on restoring aid to the survivors.
"We weren't able to see any of the detainees, and we believe there are detainees," she said.
From a humanitarian point of view, she said, el-Fasher remains Sudan's "epicentre of human suffering" and the city – which once held more than a million people – is still facing a famine.
"El-Fasher is a ghost of its former self," Brown said in an interview.
"We don't have enough information yet to conclude how many people remain there, but we know large parts of the city are destroyed. The people who remain, their homes have been destroyed."
"These people are living in very precarious situations," warned Brown, a Canadian diplomat and the United Nations' humanitarian coordinator in Sudan.
"Some of them in abandoned buildings. Some of them ... in very rudimentary conditions, plastic sheeting, no sanitation, no water. So these are very undignified, unsafe conditions for people."
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the regular army and its former allies, the RSF, that has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe.
Brown said that the team "negotiated hard with the RSF" to obtain access, and managed to look around and visit a hard-pressed hospital and some abandoned U.N. premises – but only for a few hours.
Their movements were also limited by fears of unexploded ordnance and mines left behind from nearly two years of fighting.
The Saudi hospital was still standing, with some medical staff present, but has run out of supplies.
"There was one small market operating, mostly with produce that comes from surrounding areas, so tomatoes, onions, potatoes," she said.
"Very small quantities, very small bags, which tells you that people can't afford to buy more."
"There is a declared famine in el-Fasher. We've been blocked from going in. So there's nothing good about what's happened in el-Fasher.
"It was a mission to test could we get our people safely in and out, to have a look at what remains of the town, who remains there, what their situation is," she said.
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, driven 11 million from their homes and has caused what the U.N. has declared "the world's worst humanitarian disaster."
