After overrunning the last major stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Darfur, which had held out for more than 500 days, RSF fighters moved house to house, he said, with “credible reports of widespread executions” as civilians tried to escape.
Nearly 500 patients and their companions were reported to have died at the Saudi Maternity Hospital, one of many health facilities attacked in the fighting.
“Tens of thousands of terrified and hungry civilians have fled or are on the move,“said Mr. Fletcher. “Those who can flee… the vast majority women, children and the elderly – face extortion, rape and violence on the dangerous journey.“
The horror spreads
Undersecretary-General for Africa Martha Pobee called the fall of El Fasher “a significant change in security dynamics,” warning that the implications for Sudan and the broader region are “profound.”
Fighting has already intensified in the Kordofan region, where the RSF captured the strategic town of Bara last week.
Drone strikes by both RSF and SAF, he said, are now hitting new targets across Blue Nile, South Kordofan, Western Darfur and Khartoum. “The territorial scope of the conflict is expanding,” he warned.
“The risk of mass atrocities, violence against ethnic groups and further violations of international humanitarian law, including sexual violence, remains alarmingly high.” Ms. Pobee told the Council.
“Despite commitments to protect civilians, the reality is that no one is safe in El Fasher. There is no safe passage for civilians to leave the city.”
The UN human rights office, OHCHR, has documented mass killings, summary executions and ethnically motivated reprisals in both El Fasher and Bara. In the latter, at least 50 civilians have been killed in recent days, including five Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers, Ms. Pobee said.
A woman searches through the burned remains of her shelter in a displaced persons camp in Darfur, Sudan.
History of atrocities in Darfur
“What happens in El Fasher recalls the horrors to which Darfur was subjected twenty years ago” Fletcher said, referring to the atrocities of the early 2000s that shocked the world and eventually led to indictments from the International Criminal Court.
“But somehow today we are seeing a very different global reaction: one of resignation,” he continued. “This is also a crisis of apathy.”
“The crisis in Sudan is, at its core, a failure to protect ourselves and our responsibility to respect international law,” Fletcher said. “Atrocities are committed with the blatant expectation of impunity…the world has failed an entire generation.“
Descent into total war
The conflict in Sudan began in April 2023, when a long-running power struggle between the SAF and RSF erupted into open war.
The RSF has its roots in the Janjaweed militias accused of atrocities in Darfur 20 years ago, while the SAF represents the remnants of Khartoum’s former military government.
Both forces once shared power after the ouster of former president Omar al-Bashir in 2019, but a dispute over the integration of the RSF into the national army triggered a nationwide collapse.
What began as a fight for state control has since become a brutal struggle marked by ethnic murders, urban sieges, mass displacement and famine conditions across much of the country.
Sudanese refugees arrive in the border town of Adre, Chad. (archive)
Regional overflow and humanitarian collapse
More than four million people have already fled to neighboring Chad, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, straining humanitarian operations and increasing instability in already fragile border regions.
Within Sudan, more than 24 million people (more than 40 percent of the population) are food insecure. Tawila, the main destination about 50 kilometers away for those fleeing El Fasher, is already home to hundreds of thousands of people displaced by previous attacks.
“Our teams in Tawila are seeing traumatized people arriving showing shocking signs of malnutrition,” Mr Fletcher said.
‘Blood in the sand. blood on hands
Fletcher said the Council must act “with immediate and forceful action” to stop atrocities, ensure safe humanitarian access and stop arms flows that fuel war.
“I urge my colleagues to study the latest satellite images of El Fasher; blood in the sand” he told the ambassadors. “And I urge colleagues to Study the world’s continued failure to stop this. blood on hands.”