Doctors Without Borders urges RSF to let civilians flee as violence grows in Sudan's Al Fasher

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has called on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied armed groups to immediately allow civilians to leave Sudan's Al Fasher city as conditions in the North Darfur capital are deteriorating, with abuses against residents escalating.

“We urgently call on the RSF and allied armed groups to spare civilians and let them flee El Fasher,” Michel Olivier Lacharite, MSF head of emergencies, said in a statement published by the organisation on X on Sunday.

He also urged the members of the quad — the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt — to use their leverage "to stop the bloodbath” in the city.

The group said it is closely monitoring the situation and warned that the international community “cannot look away” as the humanitarian crisis deepens in Al Fasher.

International mediation efforts fail to end conflict

Tens of thousands of Sudanese civilians have fled towns and villages in a sprawling region east of Darfur, the United Nations said, just over a week after the paramilitary forces overran the city of Al Fasher.

The UN's migration agency said in a statement late Sunday that an estimated 36,825 people have fled five localities in North Kordofan, a region a few hundred kilometres east of Darfur, where the Rapid Support Forces captured the last major army stronghold last week.

On October 26, the RSF seized control of the city of Al Fasher in North Darfur state and committed massacres against civilians, according to local and international organisations, amid warnings that control of the city could entrench the geographical partition of Sudan.

Since April 15 2023, the Sudanese army and the RSF have been locked in a war that regional and international mediations have failed to end.

The conflict has killed 20,000 people and displaced more than 15 million as refugees and internally displaced persons, according to UN and local reports.