UN: Clashes with heavy weapons in Darfur cause deaths and displacement

The intensification of fighting in Al Fasher, the capital of the sudanese state of North Darfur, and the use of heavy weapons have left around thirty dead and hundreds displaced in recent days, reported this Sunday the United Nations Office (UN) for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

OCHA said in a statement that clashes between the Sudanese Army and allied armed movements against the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (FAR) resumed on May 10 in Al Fasher, leaving at least 27 dead, 130 injured and almost thousand new displaced people.

In these clashes, which lasted throughout the day, they used “air strikes and heavy weapons and they spread in the city center and the main market, as well as in different residential neighborhoods.

According to reports received by OCHA, the majority of the displaced have fled from the east and northwest of Al Fasher towards the southern areas of the city, while it noted that “Although the fighting has ceased, there are concerns that it may soon resume.”

This comes on top of a wave of more than 40,000 displaced people within Al Fasher in early April, when a “intertribal conflict” in the midst of clashes between the FAR and the Army in different parts of North Darfur.

OCHA recalled that violence has limited “seriously” humanitarian access to Al Fasher, and so far in 2024 only 39 trucks have accessed through cross-border crossings such as Tine, which connects Darfur with Chad, and where 15,00 tons of non-food items have been waiting for weeks for approvals necessary to cross.

“Even before these most recent developments, more than a year of conflict and persistent access barriers that hinder the sustained delivery of aid and other commodities have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, home to 9 million people in need,” OCHA recalled.

Al Fasher is the only capital of the five states of Darfur that is not controlled by the FAR, but the paramilitary attack to take over this strategic town threatens more than 1.5 million people, including some 800,000 displaced people, according to the ONU.

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