“Civilians are the only ones who suffer,” a Sudanese man who has been displaced several times told the NGO. In April, a bloody power struggle broke out in the capital Khartoum between the troops of military ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group of his former deputy, Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti. In fact, the RSF should have been subordinated to the army and power in the country should have been transferred back to a civilian government. Instead, fighting spread across several regions in the spring of 2023. It is estimated that more than 12,000 people were killed.
“The situation became unbearable,” recalls a woman who fled the city of Omdurman – which is close to the capital Khartoum – at the start of the fighting. Like many others, she and her children fled the state of al-Khartoum to the neighboring state of al-Jazeera. Medical care on site was inadequate. The situation has become particularly precarious since the provincial capital, Wad Madani, was captured by RSF militias last month.
Portal/El Tayeb Siddig Fighting in Khartoum triggered a large movement of refugees in mid-April
UN office: millions of people on the run
In the space of a month, more than 600,000 people were displaced, especially in the Al-Jazeera state, the UN Office of Emergency Relief (OCHA) reported on Sunday. Over the past nine months, a total of more than 7.4 million people have been displaced or fled abroad. Before the start of the war, the number of inhabitants was estimated at around 48 million people.
“My family and I are originally from Darfur, but due to the violent clashes and crisis there, we moved to Khartoum, where we became internally displaced people. But the war followed us to Khartoum, so we went to Wad Madani. And so the story continues,” said a father from the NGO MSF. When clashes broke out in Wad Madani in mid-December, the family fled again. “I thought to myself, where should we go now?”
Concerns about fighting in key growing areas
The new fighting areas in the central and eastern areas are where most food is grown, according to OCHA. This makes the supply situation even more difficult. The need for humanitarian assistance continues to increase. However, distribution is difficult due to the security situation, looting, bureaucratic obstacles, poor telephone connections and lack of money. The need to support almost 15 million people this year is around 2.7 billion dollars (around 2.5 billion euros). Of these, 3.1 percent have been received so far.
Rick Brennan, regional emergency director for the World Health Organization (WHO), spoke of a “very difficult working environment” at a press conference in Cairo on Monday. To make matters worse, there have been recent outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, measles, polio, dengue fever and malaria in the country.
Warning of “generational catastrophe”
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday of a “generational catastrophe” for the country's 24 million children. The organization estimates that half of those displaced are children. Sudan is facing the “biggest displacement crisis in the world”, UNICEF representative in Sudan, Mandeep O'Brien, told AFP. The country's future is at stake. 14 million children are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
Escalation of violence in Darfur
The situation in Darfur's western provinces is particularly devastating – one of the country's most serious conflicts has raged in Darfur for more than 20 years. Conflicts that had been simmering for years between ethnic minorities, such as the Masalit and RSF militias of Arab origin, have worsened again due to the struggle for power.
O Militia Rapid Support Forces (RSF) emerged from cavalry militias in the Darfur region, notorious for human rights crimes. The RSF is accused of looting, mass murder, rape and ethnic cleansing.
Reports from Sudanese refugees in Chad painted a picture of an “unbearable spiral of violence with looting, house burnings, beatings, sexual violence and massacres,” MSF reported in a recent broadcast.
High mortality in refugee camps
The results of the survey, carried out last year by the medical research and epidemiology center of Doctors Without Borders Epidemiology, show a significant increase in mortality since the start of the conflict in Sudan, in April 2023, in the three refugee camps where the study was carried out. accomplished. Refugees housed in Ourang camp are the most affected. The death rate here has increased twentyfold since April 2023 and has reached 2.25 deaths per 10,000 inhabitants per day. 83 percent of those killed were men.
The ethnic dimension of the violence, rooted in political, economic and rural rivalries between communities living in the territory, took a particular turn in the capital of West Darfur, al-Junaina. “Today there are practically no Masalites living there anymore,” says MSF.
According to the humanitarian organization, one of the most recent outbreaks of violence occurred in November in Ardamatta, northeast of Al-Junaina. Hundreds of people were killed when militias took control of the area, which housed a large camp for displaced people and a garrison of the Sudanese armed forces.
Almost no prospect of peace
The prospect of peace between the troops of the de facto head of state, al-Burhan, and the RSF militias seems distant. On Tuesday, Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it would end its involvement in mediation efforts with the African regional organization IGAD. IGAD had already placed Sudan on the agenda of a meeting to which RSF leader Dagalo was invited. Dagalo recently met with several African heads of state, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Kenyan President William Ruto.