At least 782 civilians have been killed and more than 1,100 wounded in a months-long paramilitary siege of the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur, a United Nations (UN) report said Friday.
Since April of last year, Sudan has been locked in a brutal conflict between the army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and home to two million people, has seen some of the war’s fiercest fighting as the army battles the RSF to retain its last foothold in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
“The continuing siege of El Fasher and the relentless fighting are devastating lives everyday on a massive scale,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement.
The UN Human Rights Office report, based on interviews with 52 individuals who fled El-Fasher, said that the RSF had been regularly shelling densely populated areas since May, while the army has carried out air strikes and artillery bombardments.
The city has faced intense attacks over the past week.
Last Friday, paramilitary shelling on the city’s main hospital killed nine people and wounded 20, the head of the World Health Organization said.
On Wednesday, more paramilitary attacks on the hospital and other parts of the city left 10 civilians dead and 20 wounded, according to pro-democracy activists.
A paramilitary drone attack also killed at least 38 people in the city center on Sunday.
Earlier this month, the RSF shelled the famine-stricken Zamzam displacement camp just south of El-Fasher, killing six people and injuring 13, activists said.
Turk warned that any large-scale attack on Zamzam or El-Fasher would “catapult civilian suffering to catastrophic levels.”
“All efforts must be taken, including by the international community, to prevent such an attack and to halt the siege,” he added.
Nearly all of Darfur is now under RSF control, while the army holds parts of the north and east of the country.
The conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced more than 11 million and left 26 million at risk of starvation.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of indiscriminately bombing medical facilities and civilians, as well as deliberate attacks on residential areas.