According to the United Nations, at least 91 people have died in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher as a result of RSF (paramilitary Rapid Support Forces) attacks over the course of the past ten days.
The RSF and Sudan’s army engaged in intense fighting in the city, which is the largest urban center in the Darfur region, which is still under the military’s and its allies’ command, known as the Joint Forces.
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The RSF has been putting more than a year of siege on El-Fasher, the state’s capital, since it launched a new offensive in recent weeks, raising concerns about potential atrocities.
From September 19 through September 29, the city’s Daraja Oula neighborhood was repeatedly attacked and subjected to RSF artillery shelling, drone strikes, and ground incursions, according to UN rights chief Volker Turk.
He demanded immediate response to “large-scale, ethnically driven attacks and atrocities in el-Fasher.”
He claimed that “atrocities are not inevitable,” adding that “they can be averted if all actors demand respect for civilian life and property, respect international law, and stop atrocity crimes from being committed.”
El-Fasher has become the focus of the fighting since the army recaptured Khartoum in March.
According to the Sudanese army and city residents, the RSF has increased the pace and frequency of its attacks, including the frequent use of drones, as it has intensified its nearly 500-day siege of the city, which is one of the longest in contemporary urban warfare.
More than 260, 000 people are reportedly still trapped in the city  without access to adequate food, water, or medical supplies.
The majority of people can’t eat what little food still has. In a recent opinion piece for The Guardian, Sarra Majdoub, a former UN expert on the subject, reported that while the average monthly salary, when salaries were still being paid, was $70, while a kilo of millet sold for $80, and a kilo of sugar or flour for $80.
A medical professional in El-Fasher reported to the AFP news agency that at least six people had been killed and ten had been hurt in the city’s Wednesday artillery and drone attacks.
At least 78 people were killed last month when an RSF-linked drone attacked al-Safiyah Mosque during morning prayers.
Because there was “no visible ground scarring or crater inside the mosque,” the Yale Humanitarian Lab’s satellite images and analysis indicated that the weapon was likely an RSF suicide drone because it had “no visible ground scarring or crater inside the mosque,” which suggested the weapon detonated when struck with the roof of the mosque.
Due to the RSF siege, civilians in the city have been largely concentrated in the north, close to the Sudanese army’s main position, but have not been able to flee.
The army reported last week that it had managed to deliver supplies to its soldiers in the city, a testament to how treacherous the siege has been.
According to Turk, “the cruelty of the situation is compounded by persistent arbitrary RSF restrictions on bringing food and essential supplies into the city and credible reports of civilians being tortured and killed by RSF fighters for doing so.”
Because the RSF has almost completely encircled the city, extending a 68km (42 mile-long) berm it has dug at its perimeter, civilians who have tried to flee frequently have to make life-threatening journeys to nearby camps for displaced people.
Human rights organizations have reported killings and violations committed by the RSF against those who attempted to flee El-Fasher.
The city’s current situation is “extremely dire,” according to Mukesh Kapila, a professor of global health and humanitarian affairs at the University of Manchester.
Source: Aljazeera
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