KHARTOUM: Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned on Thursday of "mass atrocities" and "ethnically targeted violence" in Sudan's Darfur, as fighting between the army and rival paramilitaries escalated in the war-scarred region. Since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has sought to consolidate its power in Darfur, a vast region where the RSF's predecessor, the Janjaweed group, was accused of genocide two decades ago. In the war since April 2023, both the RSF and the army have been accused of mass atrocities, and the United States has said the paramilitaries "committed genocide" in Darfur, in Sudan's west.
Doctors Without Borders issued a report based on dozens of interviews conducted between May 2024 and May 2025, raising fears of systematic violence against ethnic groups. "People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting... but also actively targeted by the RSF and its allies, notably on the basis of their ethnicity," said Michel-Olivier Lacharite, MSF's head of emergencies.
The RSF has intensified attacks on El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state which the paramilitaries have besieged since May 2024 in a bid to push the army out of its final stronghold in the region. MSF noted "threats of a full-blown assault" on El Fasher, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people largely cut off from food and water supplies and deprived of access to medical care.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday expressed hope for a negotiated ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into the besieged city. The MSF report, based on 80 interviews with displaced people and patients between May 2024 and May 2025, described "systematic patterns of violence" including "looting, mass killings, violence, abductions, starvation" and attacks against civilian and health facilities.
Witnesses said RSF fighters spoke of plans to "clean El Fasher" of its communities, particularly the Zaghawa ethnic group, raising fears of a massacre akin to 2023 atrocities against the Masalit people in West Darfur state. "We fear such a scenario will be repeated in El Fasher," Mathilde Simon, MSF's humanitarian affairs adviser, said in a statement. The medical charity was forced to halt its operations in El Fasher and the nearby famine-hit Zamzam displacement camp early this year due to repeated attacks.
Across Sudan, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 13 million and created what the UN describes as the world's largest displacement and hunger crises. In North Darfur alone, more than a million people are on the brink of famine, according to the UN figures. — AFP
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