A senior UN official has warned that the situation in Sudan will have significant effects unless more is done to address the year-old civil war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces.
Speaking to BBC Newsday, Toby Harward, the UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, described the situation in and around the city of El Fasher in North Darfur as “catastrophic”:
“The scale of the crisis in Sudan – the biggest displacement crisis, the biggest humanitarian crisis, more children out of school than anywhere else, massive sexual violence cases.
“The scale of this crisis and the potential for it to metastasize and spread across the region which will have significant effects well beyond the Horn of Africa demands much more attention from the international community.”
The senior UN official described increasing arbitrary killings, the burning of entire villages, intensifying air bombardments and a tightening siege that’s preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid.
El Fasher is the last city in the Darfur region still under army control and fears are growing that the paramilitary RSF and its allied militias are preparing an attack.
