The conflict in Sudan has displaced more than two million people, the United Nations said on Wednesday, as a UN official warned that escalating attacks in Darfur city could amount to “crimes against humanity”. Sudan has plunged into chaos since mid-April when monthslong tensions between the military and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, exploded into an open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere across the northeastern African nation.
The fighting continued unabated on Wednesday in parts of the capital and the western region of Darfur, both have seen some of the worst battels. At least 959 civilians have been killed and about 4,750 others were wounded as of June 12, according to Sudan’s Doctors Syndicate, which tracks civilian casualties.The brutal clashes have forced more than 1.6 million people to leave their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, according to the International Organisation for Migration. About 530,000 others fled to the neighbouring countries of Egypt, South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and Libya, the agency said.
The medical group said the toll could be much higher given it was unable to take into account those who were killed or wounded in the ongoing clashes in Genena, the provincial capital of West Darfur. The city’s hospitals have been out of service since the fighting erupted there in April, the group said.
All of Sudan’s 18 provinces experienced displacement, with Khartoum at the top of the list with around 65 per cent of the total number of displaced people, followed by West Darfur with over 17 per cent, according to the IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix.
In Genena, the provincial capital of West Darfur, the RSF and allied Arab militias rampaged through the city over the past week, killing and wounded hundreds of people, according to local activists and UN officials. Activists and residents in Genena reported dozens of women were sexually attacked inside their homes and while trying to flee the fighting. Almost all rape cases were blamed on the RSF, which didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.