The war has created the world's worst humanitarian situation: an estimated 756,000 people in Sudan will face “catastrophic food shortages” in September.
Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched a major attack on El-Fasher in North Darfur, a day after the UN Security Council demanded the militia end its siege of the town. It had lasted weeks.
The Sudanese Armed Forces “aborted the attack and inflicted huge losses” with “hundreds” killed and wounded in the failed RSF assault, it said in a statement.
Among the dead was a senior RSF commander, Ali Yagoub Gibril, and the attackers “fled the battlefield,” he added.
RSF did not receive an immediate response.
The conflict in Sudan broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, loyal to General Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.
The violence has killed at least 14,000 people and displaced more than 10 million, according to UN estimates. The UN and human rights groups have said they fear ethnic cleansing if RSF captures el-Fasher, a city of 1.8 million people and the army's last stronghold in the Darfur region.
The war has created the world's worst humanitarian situation: an estimated 756,000 people in Sudan face “catastrophic food shortages” in September.
'Rape of our sisters and mothers'
Many Sudanese have joined the armed forces to fight the rampaging RSF.
Musa Adam was displaced from his town of Nyala, South Darfur. He told Al Jazeera that the horrors committed by RSF soldiers led him to join the SAF effort against the militia.
“The displacement, the looting of civilians, the rape of our sisters and mothers is what made me join. The RSF seized Nyala and staying there became too dangerous. So I came here, but I joined to go back to Darfur and fight the RSF.”
In North Darfur, RSF launched repeated attacks that displaced more than 130,000 people last month. Several mass graves have been reported in the state. Dozens of villages have been burned to the ground, mostly ethnic Zaghawas.
Abu-Alqassim Mohammed, a former RSF officer, also joined the Sudanese Armed Forces.
“I reported to the army on the first day of the conflict against the RSF because they rebelled against the government. They opposed the army and the country from day one. They killed civilians and forced them to leave their homes,” he stated.
El-Fasher has become a focal point of the nearly year-long war. The battle for the city, considered crucial for humanitarian aid in a region on the brink of famine, has raged for more than a month.
The charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said on Friday that fighting in El Fasher has killed at least 226 people and injured 1,418. The total death toll is believed to be much higher as the wounded cannot receive treatment amid continued airstrikes, shelling and ground fighting.
“The situation in El Fasher is chaotic,” says Michel-Olivier Lacharite, head of MSF's emergency programme.
'We need the world to wake up'
The latest UN Security Council resolution calls for an immediate ceasefire, unhindered humanitarian access and compliance with an arms embargo on Sudan, following a previous failed call for a ceasefire in March coinciding with Ramadan.
The United States announced $315 million in emergency aid for Sudan on Friday, warning that it could be unleashing a famine of historic proportions.
“We need the world to wake up to the catastrophe that is happening before our very eyes,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters.
“We have seen mortality projections that estimate that more than 2.5 million people – about 15 percent of the population – in Darfur and Kordofan, the most affected regions, could die by the end of September,” he said.
“This is the biggest humanitarian crisis on the face of the planet, and yet somehow it threatens to get worse as the rainy season approaches.”
