(Al Jazeera Media Network) More than 700 people have been killed in el-Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur state since May, the United Nations human rights chief has said, imploring the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to halt a siege of the city.

The siege and “the relentless fighting are devastating lives every day on a massive scale,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement on Friday.

“This alarming situation cannot continue. The Rapid Support Forces must end this horrible siege.”

The UN rights office said it had documented the deaths of at least 782 civilians and more than 1,143 injured since May, citing evidence based partly on interviews of those who had fled the area. It said the casualties came amid regular and intensive shelling by the RSF of densely populated residential areas as well as recurrent air attacks by the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Such attacks on civilians may amount to war crimes, the UN human rights office said. Both sides have repeatedly denied deliberately attacking civilians and have accused each other of doing so in el-Fasher and its surroundings.

The Sudanese army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have been locked in conflict for more than 18 months. The war has triggered a profound humanitarian crisis in which more than 12 million people have been driven from their homes, and UN agencies have struggled to deliver relief.

El-Fasher is one of the most active front lines between the RSF and the Sudanese army and its allies, which are fighting to maintain a last foothold in the Darfur region. Observers fear that an RSF victory there could bring ethnic retribution, as happened in West Darfur last year.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/20/more-than-700-killed-in-siege-of-sudans-el-fasher-un-says