New light shed on el-Fasher horror as survivors arrive in Sudan’s Tawila
Streets littered with corpses, families separated by violence and survivors travelling for days without food or water. These are the accounts emerging from people who have fled the western Sudanese city of el-Fasher after it fell to paramilitary forces a week ago following an asphyxiating 18-month siege.
Fatima Yahya has arrived in Tawila, a town west of el-Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur State that is controlled by a neutral force in the conflict. She was still traumatised from the three days she went hungry before finally escaping. Her husband and uncle are missing. The memories of what happened in el-Fasher were difficult for her to put into words.
“The dead bodies were everywhere – in the streets, inside houses and at the gates of many houses,” Yahya told Al Jazeera. “Wherever you are in el-Fasher, you will see dead bodies scattered.”
Her testimony is one of several accounts from people who fled North Darfur’s capital after the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group fighting Sudan’s regular army, captured the city on October 26. The RSF’s takeover gave the group control of the last major city in Darfur to have been held by the Sudanese armed forces (SAF), solidifying its grip across the vast western region.
Since the fall of el-Fasher, a city that was home to more than 1 million people before the war, reports have mounted of mass executions, sexual violence and widespread looting.
Satellite imagery analysed by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab has identified at least 31 locations where objects consistent with human bodies have appeared since the city’s capture, accompanied by what researchers describe as reddish ground discolouration.
Families separated in the chaos
For those who fled, injuries from the initial fighting made their journey even more gruelling. Farhat Said left el-Fasher with her daughter despite both suffering injuries in artillery fire before the RSF’s final assault on the city. Her husband, who had suffered a severe hip fracture as a result of the bombardment, she said, had to be left behind.
