Hundreds of emaciated survivors from Sudan’s El-Fasher have arrived in Tawila, describing mass killings, rapes, and a city gripped by famine following the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) capture of the last army stronghold in North Darfur last week.
The RSF, at war with the Sudanese army since April 2023, overran the city after an 18-month siege that cut off food supplies, forcing residents to eat animal feed.
Up to 10,000 people have reached a clinic run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Tawila, while the International Organisation for Migration estimates 60,000 more fled to unknown locations and 200,000 may remain trapped.
A global hunger monitor confirmed famine in El-Fasher prior to its fall, conditions expected to persist until January.
Fleeing residents traveled on donkey carts and on foot, carrying wounded children and the elderly.
Fatuma, one survivor, said she took three orphans whose parents were killed in a drone strike while fetching food.
The youngest, a 40-day-old infant, cried constantly from hunger as shrapnel injured his sister in a shelter.
On the road, RSF fighters stopped her group.
“They made us lay the baby on the ground and made all of us get down on the ground, and took everything we had,” she said.
She eventually reached the MSF clinic with the children.
Another 170 unaccompanied minors arrived, all screened as malnourished.
MSF project coordinator Sylvain Penicaud said patients were “extremely emaciated,” with the clinic treating nearly 1,000 trauma cases from attacks inside the city and along escape routes.
The International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor expressed alarm over reports of mass killings and sexual violence during the RSF assault.
Such acts, if proven, may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute, it said.
The court has jurisdiction in Darfur via UN Security Council Resolution 1593 and is actively collecting evidence through field missions and victim outreach.
Prosecutors cited the recent conviction of Janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb for 2004 atrocities as precedent.
The RSF leader has urged fighters to protect civilians and said violations will be prosecuted, but rights groups accuse the group of ethnic cleansing earlier in the conflict.
El-Fasher’s last hospital came under repeated attack, running out of antibiotics and gauze, leaving fractures unstable and wounds infected.