tag

Sudan's defence minister said on Tuesday that the army would press on with fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces after the country's security and defence council met to discuss a US proposal for a ceasefire."We thank the Trump administration for its efforts and proposals to achieve peace," Hassan Kabroun said in a speech broadcast on state television, adding that "preparations for the Sudanese people's battle are ongoing.""Our preparations for war are a legitimate national right," he said, following the council meeting in Khartoum.No details of the US truce proposal have been made public.The war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions more over the past two years, has spread to new areas of Sudan in recent days, sparking fears of an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.After mediating in other conflicts in Africa and the Middle East in recent months, the US administration under Donald Trump is now pushing for a ceasefire in Sudan.The army-aligned authorities had rejected an earlier truce proposal under which both they and the paramilitaries they are fighting would be excluded from a transitional political process.The latest discussions follow an escalation on the ground, with the paramilitary RSF appearing to prepare an assault on the central Kordofan region after it captured El-Fasher, the last army stronghold in the vast Darfur region.People forced to flee El-Fasher have described to AFP intimidation and violence from the RSF.Mohamed Abdullah, 56, told AFP he was stopped by RSF fighters while fleeing El-Fasher on Saturday, just hours before its fall."They demanded our phones, money, everything. They kept searching us thoroughly," he said of the RSF.On his way to Tawila, about 70 kilometres to the west, he saw "a body left on the street that looked like it had been eaten by a dog".Trump's envoy to Africa, Massad Boulos, held talks in Sudan's neighbour Egypt on Sunday with Cairo's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and then on Monday with the Arab League.During the discussions, Abdelatty stressed "the importance of concerted efforts to reach a humanitarian truce and a ceasefire throughout Sudan, paving the way for a comprehensive political process in the country", according to a foreign ministry statement.According to the Arab League, Boulos met the regional body's chief Ahmed Aboul-Gheit and briefed him on recent US efforts in Sudan to "halt the war, expedite aid delivery and initiate a political process".The so-called Quad group, comprising the United States, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, has been engaged in months of diplomacy aimed at securing a truce in the more than 30-month conflict in Sudan.In September, the four powers proposed a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a permanent ceasefire and a nine-month transition to civilian rule, but the army-aligned government immediately rejected the plan at the time.In the aftermath of the RSF's assault on the key city of El-Fasher, reports emerged of mass killings, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions during the offensive.The International Criminal Court on Monday voiced "profound alarm and deepest concern" over the reports, adding that such acts "may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity".Speaking at a forum in Qatar, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called on the warring parties to "come to the negotiating table, bring an end to this nightmare of violence -- now"."The horrifying crisis in Sudan... is spiralling out of control," he added.At a protest in Sudan's capital Khartoum, which is under army control, children took part in an anti-paramilitary protest on Monday.One pupil held up a handwritten sign that read: "Do not kill children, do not kill women.""The militia is killing the women of El-Fasher with no mercy," read another sign.Both sides in the brutal war have been accused of committing atrocities.Meanwhile, the Sudanese army has received support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran, according to observers.The fall of El-Fasher gave paramilitaries control over all five state capitals in Darfur, raising fears that Sudan would effectively be partitioned along an east-west axis.The RSF now dominates Darfur and parts of the south while the army holds the north, east and central regions along the Nile and Red Sea.

Darfur city fell to paramilitary force after long siegeFate of many of those who remained in El-Fasher is unclearWitness says he saw bodies strewn along the roadAt a clinic in Sudan's North Darfur where dozens of bony children lie on cots and men with bandaged wounds await surgery, patients described a desperate escape from the city of El-Fasher as it was captured last week by a paramilitary force.They are among up to 10,000 people who arrived in the town of Tawila after fleeing the capture of nearby El-Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces, and are now being treated at the clinic run by international aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres. Famine-stricken El-Fasher was the final stronghold of the Sudanese army in the vast, western Darfur region before it fell to the RSF after an 18-month siege. Witnesses have reported mass killings following the RSF takeover and many of El-Fasher's residents are unaccounted for. The city's capture marked a turning point in a two-and-a-half-year-old war between the RSF and the army. The siege had cut off food supplies, forcing many locals to eat animal feed as they sought shelter from drones and shelling.**media[377473]**In addition to those who reached Tawila, more than 60,000 others are believed to have escaped El-Fasher, according to the International Organisation for Migration, though their whereabouts are unclear. As many as 200,000 people may still be trapped inside the city, according to estimates of the city's population towards the end of the siege. The head of the RSF has called on his fighters to protect civilians and said violations will be prosecuted. Rights groups and U.S. officials have accused the RSF and allied militias of ethnic cleansing in Darfur earlier in the conflict.The dire conditions inside El-Fasher were described by two patients at the MSF clinic, in accounts obtained by a local journalist who has previously provided verified material for Reuters.**media[377472]**One, who gave her name as Fatuma, said she was entrusted with the care of three children orphaned when their parents and brother had been killed by a drone strike as they fetched a meal.The youngest, a thin infant just 40 days old, lay crying in her arms. His sister, sitting nearby, had suffered a leg injury when shrapnel hit her as she ran into a dugout shelter.**media[377468]**Fatuma took the children out of the city on a donkey cart with other injured people just before El-Fasher fell, but came across RSF soldiers on the road. "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 was eventually able to bring the baby to the MSF clinic.Some 170 other children arrived in Tawila unaccompanied, said Sylvain Penicaud, MSF project coordinator, and all the children screened by the agency were malnourished. "People are arriving extremely emaciated," he said. On Monday, a global hunger monitor found that El-Fasher had been experiencing famine prior to its fall, conditions expected to persist until January. Mouna Hanebali, another member of the MSF team, said the clinic received almost 1,000 trauma cases stemming from attacks on the road, but also from inside El-Fasher. The city's last-standing hospital was under constant attack and deprived of antibiotics and gauze, leading to unstable fractures and infected wounds that need new surgeries. A second patient, Abdallah, said he had escaped El-Fasher amidst intense shelling and gunfire on the day of the takeover."People left in chaos, carrying children, some in wheelbarrows, some on donkey carts, some on their feet," he said. "No one walking around was untouched, everyone was injured." Abdallah, awaiting surgery in the MSF clinic after being shot multiple times, said he saw what he estimated to be more than 1,000 bodies on the road.**media[377471]**"Some were killed by thirst, some by exhaustion, some by their injuries, the bleeding," he said. Reuters could not independently verify his account.With only a fraction of those who remained in El-Fasher arriving in Tawila, medical supplies are still plentiful but water and latrines less so, the MSF staff said. Cholera had ravaged Tawila during the rainy season, and Penicaud said a new case had been recorded on Sunday, though it was unclear if it was isolated or the result of a new outbreak of the disease.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called for a halt to fighting in Sudan, warning that the crisis was rapidly deteriorating after paramilitaries overran a key city.Guterres urged the warring parties to "come to the negotiating table, bring an end to this nightmare of violence -- now"."The horrifying crisis in Sudan... is spiralling out of control," he told reporters on the sidelines of the World Summit for Social Development in Doha.At the end of October the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the Sudanese army since 2023, seized control of the strategic city of El-Fasher, following an 18-month seige.Reports have emerged of executions, sexual violence, looting, attacks on aid workers and abductions in and around El-Fasher, where communications remain largely cut off."El-Fasher and the surrounding areas in North Darfur have been an epicentre of suffering, hunger, violence and displacement," Guterres said."And since the Rapid Support Forces entered El-Fasher last weekend, the situation is growing worse by the day," he added."Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped by this siege. People are dying of malnutrition, disease and violence."Guterres also said there were "continued reports of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights".The UN chief also warned against violations of the ceasefire in Gaza that halted two years of war in the Palestinian territory.Hamas reported fresh Israeli strikes in Gaza on Saturday, after Israel said three bodies it received from Gaza did not belong to hostages.That came after Israeli attacks killed more than 100 people last Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run territory's civil defence agency. Prior to that, strikes on October 19 killed 45 people, the agency said.Guterres on Tuesday said he was "deeply concerned about the continued violations of the ceasefire in Gaza."They must stop and all parties must abide by the decisions of the first phase of the peace agreement."

El-Fasher taken by paramilitary force late last monthFood supplies had been cut off during long siegeUN-backed monitor first confirmed famine in Darfur last yearA global hunger monitor on Monday confirmed famine conditions in El-Fasher, the Sudanese city taken by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after a lengthy siege, as well as Kadugli, another besieged city in Sudan's south. The finding is the first time the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has determined that the cities are in famine, though in December it had confirmed famine in camps for displaced people in El-Fasher, capital of North Darfur.A war that began two-and-a-half years ago between the RSF and the Sudanese army has caused severe hunger and malnutrition to spread across Sudan, as well as displacing millions of people and triggering waves of ethnically charged violence in Darfur. The IPC is the internationally recognised standard for measuring the severity of hunger crises, and its findings have provoked criticism from Sudan's government, which is backed by the army.The IPC's first determination of famine during the conflict was for the Zamzam displacement camp south of El-Fasher in August 2024. El-Fasher was subject to RSF assaults and besieged for about 18 months before it fell late last month, deepening a geographical split in Sudan. During the siege, residents said food supplies were cut off, forcing people to eat animal feed and sometimes animal hides. Places where people gathered for community kitchen meals were targeted by drone attacks, they told Reuters.As a result, all children arriving in the nearby town of Tawila after fleeing El-Fasher were malnourished, MSF project coordinator Sylvain Pennicaud told Reuters on Monday, while adults arrived emaciated. International Criminal Court prosecutors said on Monday they were collecting evidence of alleged mass killings and rapes after El-Fasher's fall. The head of the Red Cross said history was repeating itself in Darfur.Monday's IPC report, based on analysis for September 2025, said Tawila, as well as Mellit and Tawisha, two other destinations for people fleeing El-Fasher, were at risk of famine. The IPC said the overall number of Sudanese facing acute food insecurity declined by 6% to 21.2 million people - or 45% of the total population - due to gradual stabilisation and improved access in central Sudan, where the Sudanese army took control at the start of the year.However, the situation deteriorated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions as fighting concentrated there, depriving people of livelihoods, increasing prices, and driving displacement, IPC said. Global aid cuts and bureaucratic impediments hobbling the ability of the United Nations and other aid agencies to provide food and other services have increased the humanitarian challenge in Sudan.Kadugli, capital of South Kordofan state, has been under siege by the RSF-allied SPLM-N armed group, though hunger has been spreading there since the start of the war.The wider Kordofan region has increasingly become a focus of the war as it lies between RSF-dominated Darfur and the rest of the country, where the army holds sway. The IPC said the nearby city al-Dalanj could also be in famine, but a lack of data prevented a determination. On Monday, a Red Crescent official said three volunteers in a city in North Kordofan state that was taken over by the RSF, who were shown being beaten in a video clip, were later killed.The RSF has denied responsibility for alleged summary executions.

The prosecutor's office at the International Criminal Court warned Monday that atrocities committed in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher could constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.The ICC prosecutor's office (OTP) voiced "profound alarm and deepest concern" over reports from El-Fasher about mass killings, rapes, and other crimes allegedly committed.After 18 months of siege, bombardment and starvation, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of El-Fasher on October 26, dislodging the army's last stronghold in Sudan's western Darfur region."These atrocities are part of a broader pattern of violence that has afflicted the entire Darfur region since April 2023," said the OTP in a statement."Such acts, if substantiated, may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute," the founding text of the ICC.The UN said more than 65,000 people have fled El-Fasher, including around 5,000 to nearby Tawila, but tens of thousands remain trapped.Before the final assault, roughly 260,000 people lived in the city.Since the RSF takeover, reports have emerged of executions, sexual violence, looting, attacks on aid workers and abductions in and around El-Fasher, where communications remain largely cut off.The RSF traces its origins to the Janjaweed, a predominantly Arab militia accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.Reports since El-Fasher's fall have raised fears of a return to similar atrocities.

Over 36,000 Sudanese civilians have fled towns and villages in the Kordofan region east of Darfur, according to the UN, as the paramilitary warned that its forces were massing along a new front line.In recent weeks, the central Kordofan region has become a new battleground in the two-year war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).Central Kordofan is strategic because it is located between Sudan's Darfur provinces and the area around the capital Khartoum.The widening of the war comes just over a week after the RSF took control of El-Fasher -- the army's last stronghold in Darfur.The RSF has set up a rival administration there, contesting the pro-army government operating out of the Red Sea city of Port Sudan.In a statement late Sunday, the UN's migration agency said an estimated 36,825 people have fled five localities in North Kordofan between October 26 and 31.Residents on Monday reported a heavy surge in both RSF and army forces across towns and villages in North Kordofan.The army and the RSF, at war since April 2023, are vying for El-Obeid, the North Kordofan state capital and a key logistics and command hub that links Darfur to Khartoum, and hosts an airport.The RSF claimed control of Bara, a city north of El-Obeid last week."Today, all our forces have converged on the Bara front here," an RSF member said in a video shared by the RSF on its official Telegram page late on Sunday, "advising civilians to steer clear of military sites".Suleiman Babiker, who lives in Um Smeima, west of El-Obeid, told AFP that following the paramilitary capture of El-Fasher, "the number of RSF vehicles increased"."We stopped going to our farms, afraid of clashes," he told AFP.Another resident, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisal, also said "there has been a big increase in army vehicles and weapons west and south of El-Obeid" over the past two weeks.Awad Ali, who lives in al-Hamadi on the road linkinig West and North Kordofan, said he has seen "RSF vehicles passing every day from the areas of West Kordofan toward El-Obeid since early October".Kordofan is a resource-rich region divided administratively into North, South and West Kordofan.It "is likely the next arena of military focus for the warring parties," Martha Pobee, assistant UN secretary-general for Africa warned last week.She cited "large-scale atrocities" perpetrated by the RSF, adding that "these included reprisals against so-called 'collaborators', which are often ethnically motivated."She also raised the alarm over patterns echoing those in Darfur, where RSF fighters have been accused of mass killings, sexual violence and abductions against non-Arab communities after the fall of El-Fasher.At least 50 civilians, including five Red Crescent volunteers, were killed in recent violence in North Kordofan, according to the UN.Both the RSF, descended from Janjaweed militias accused of genocide two decades ago, and the army face war crimes allegations.The United States under Joe Biden in January this year concluded that "members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan".But international action on Sudan has largely been muted and peace efforts have failed so far.The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million more and created the world's largest displacement and hunger crises.

Survivors fleeing the Sudanese city of El-Fasher told AFP on Saturday that paramilitary fighters separated families and killed children in front of their parents, with tens of thousands still trapped following the city's fall. Germany's top diplomat Johann Wadephul described on Saturday the situation in Sudan as "apocalyptic" while fresh satellite images suggested mass killings were likely ongoing, five days after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces seized El-Fasher. At war with the regular army since April 2023, the RSF pushed the military out of its last stronghold in the vast Darfur region after a grinding 18-month siege. Since the takeover, reports have emerged of summary executions, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions, while communications remain largely cut off. "I don't know if my son Mohamed is dead or alive. They took all the boys," Zahra, a mother of six who fled El-Fasher to the nearby town of Tawila, told AFP in a satellite phone interview. Before reaching the nearby RSF-controlled town of Garni, she said RSF fighters stopped them and took her sons, aged 16 and 20. "I begged them to let them go," she said, but the fighters only released her 16-year-old son. Another survivor, Adam, said two of his sons, aged 17 and 21, were killed in front of him. "They told them they had been fighting (for the army), and then they beat me on my back with a stick," he told AFP. In Garni, RSF fighters saw the blood of Adam's sons on his clothes and accused him of being a fighter. After hours of investigations, they let him go. The survivors' full names have been withheld for their safety. The UN says more than 65,000 people have fled El-Fasher since Sunday but tens of thousands remain trapped. Around 260,000 people were in the city before the RSF's final assault. "Large numbers of people remain in grave danger and are being prevented by the Rapid Support Forces and its allies from reaching safer areas," Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said. The group said that only 5,000 people had managed to make their way to Tawila, about 70 kilometres to the west. The numbers of people arriving in Tawila "don't add up, while accounts of large-scale atrocities are mounting", MSF's head of emergencies Michel Olivier Lacharite said. Several eyewitnesses told MSF that a group of 500 civilians, along with soldiers from the military and the army-allied Joint Forces, had attempted to flee on Sunday, but most were killed or captured by the RSF and their allies. Survivors reported that people were separated based on their gender, age or presumed ethnicity, and that many were still being held for ransom. Darfur is home to a number of non-Arab ethnic groups, who make up a majority of the region's population, in contrast to Sudan's dominant Sudanese Arabs. Hayat, a mother of five who fled the city, previously told AFP that "young men travelling with us were stopped" along the way by paramilitaries and "we don't know what happened to them". The UN said on Friday the death toll from the RSF's assault on the city may be in the hundreds, while army allies accused the paramilitary group of killing over 2,000 civilians. Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab suggested on Friday that mass killings were likely continuing in and around El-Fasher. The lab, which uses satellite imagery and open-source information to document human rights abuses during wars, said fresh images from Friday showed "no large-scale movement" of civilians fleeing the city, giving them reason to believe much of the population may be "dead, captured, or in hiding". The lab identified at least 31 clusters of objects consistent with human bodies between Sunday and Friday, across neighbourhoods, university grounds and military sites. "Indicators that mass killing is continuing are clearly visible," the lab said. At a conference in Bahrain on Saturday, Wadephul said Sudan was "absolutely an apocalyptic situation, the greatest humanitarian crisis of the world". The RSF said on Thursday that it had arrested several fighters accused of abuses during the capture of El-Fasher, but UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher questioned the group's commitment to investigating atrocities. Both the RSF -- descended from the Janjaweed militias accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago -- and the army have faced war crimes accusations over the course of the conflict. The US has previously determined that the has RSF committed genocide in Darfur. Meanwhile, the army has drawn on support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. El-Fasher's capture gives the RSF full control over all five state capitals in Darfur, effectively splitting Sudan along an east-west axis, with the army controlling the north, east and centre. UN officials have warned that the violence is now spreading to the neighbouring Kordofan region, with reports emerging of "large-scale atrocities perpetrated" by the RSF. The wider conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced nearly 12 million and created the world's largest displacement and hunger crises.

HE Minister of State for International Cooperation Maryam bint Ali bin Nasser al-Misnad, met with ambassador of South Sudan Lily Adhieu Martin Manyiel. Discussion during the meeting, focused on co-operation relations between the two countries and ways to support and develop them, in addition to the situation of displaced persons from Sudan.HE the Minister of State for International Cooperation emphasized the importance of adhering to the protection of civilians and ensuring the provision of essential services to them, especially in light of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in conflict-affected areas. She stressed the need to strengthen international and regional efforts to coordinate the humanitarian response and support the most vulnerable groups. HE al-Misnad also reiterated Qatar's unwavering support for the Sudanese people and its continued support for all initiatives aimed at achieving peace and alleviating the suffering of civilians in Sudan and neighbouring countries.

Humanitarian workers are being increasingly targeted in Gaza and in Sudan, where five Red Crescent volunteers were killed this week, the International Committee of the Red Cross's director-general Pierre Krahenbuhl told AFP Friday.Israel has repeatedly launched deadly strikes on Gaza despite a ceasefire agreed earlier in October and reports have emerged of atrocities by paramilitaries during Sudan's brutal civil war."It is now becoming a pattern of violence against humanitarian workers in Sudan, in Gaza, and others, that we find very dramatic," Krahenbuhl said in an interview before the Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain."There is a wider erosion of respect for international humanitarian law," which had "clearly not" been respected in either conflict, he added.On Tuesday, the ICRC said five Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers were killed in North Kordofan state, a major battleground of the war that has raged since April 2023.There were also reports of 460 people killed at a hospital in El-Fasher, which recently fell to Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries.The capture of El-Fasher, following an RSF siege of more than 18 months, raised fears of a return to Sudan's ethnically targeted atrocities of 20 years ago.The western city has been cut off from all communications since its fall, but survivors who reached the nearby town of Tawila told AFP of mass killings, children shot in front of their parents and civilians beaten and robbed as they fled."We are dealing with probably one of the most dramatic conflicts of our time," Krahenbuhl said, pointing to attacks against civilians, "the extensive use of sexual violence" and the targeting of medical facilities.Krahenbuhl said Gaza's destruction was beyond anything he had seen before, and warned that aid supplies remained woefully short."In the 25 or 30 years that I've been working in the humanitarian field, I have not seen that level of destruction," he said."Not enough (aid) is coming into the Gaza Strip yet," the ICRC official added. "What people need is, of course, far bigger than what we currently are able to deliver."The basic needs of Gazans are so immense "that what we are starting to do with improved humanitarian access is only the tip of the iceberg".The United Nations also warned this week that although aid had increased since the truce, humanitarian groups faced funding shortfalls and problems coordinating with Israeli authorities.Separately, Krahenbuhl hit out at Israel's order this week banning the ICRC from visiting Palestinians held under a law that allows for their indefinite detention.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said resuming the visits, which were suspended during the Gaza war, would "seriously harm the state's security".But there was "no way in which our visits can pose a security threat or a national security threat", Krahenbuhl said, urging Israel to lift the ban.

Thousands of civilians remained trapped in Sudan's stricken city of El-Fasher, with fears growing for their safety, the United Nations and local groups said on Monday, after paramilitary forces claimed control of the army's last stronghold in the western Darfur region.Since May 2024, El-Fasher has been besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been fighting a brutal war with Sudan's army for over two years.Footage shared by pro-democracy activists on Monday purportedly showed dozens of people lying dead on the ground alongside burned-out vehicles.AFP was unable to contact civilians in the city, where the Sudanese Journalists' Syndicate says communications, including satellite networks, have been cut off by a media blackout.The syndicate expressed "deep concern for the safety of journalists" in El-Fasher, adding that independent reporter Muammar Ibrahim has been detained by RSF forces since Sunday.The RSF said on Sunday they had seized control of the city, but the army and its allies did not respond to requests for comment.If confirmed, the city's capture would mark a significant turning point in Sudan's war, which has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 12 million people since April 2023.It would give the RSF control over all five state capitals in Darfur, consolidating its parallel administration in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.Such a shift could potentially partition Sudan, with the army holding the north, east and centre, and the RSF dominating Darfur and parts of the south."This represents a terrible escalation in the conflict," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in answer to an AFP question on Monday, adding that "the level of suffering that we are witnessing in Sudan is unbearable".Around 260,000 civilians, half of them children, remain trapped in El-Fasher without aid, where many have resorted to eating animal fodder.Despite RSF assurances of civilian protection, the local resistance committee accused the paramilitaries of committing atrocities, saying that since Sunday, innocent civilians had suffered "the worst forms of violence and ethnic cleansing."A video circulated by the RSF appeared to show fighters detaining dozens of men in civilian clothing accusing them of supporting the army and the Joint Forces.Fighting, pro-democracy activists said on Sunday night, continued "in the vicinity of El-Fasher airport and several areas west of the city," with a "complete absence of air support", citing failures by the army and its allies to protect residents.The army-aligned governor of Darfur called on Monday for the protection of civilians in El-Fasher and demanded "an independent investigation into the violations and massacres carried out by the militia away from public view."The UN last month voiced alarm over potential massacres targeting non-Arab communities in El-Fasher, similar to those reported after the RSF captured the nearby Zamzam camp in April.The United Nations's migration agency said 2,500 to 3,000 people fled El-Fasher on Sunday, seeking safety within the city or westward to Tawila and Mellit towns.Sudan's de facto leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, appeared publicly on Sunday night but only for a meeting with the Turkish ambassador in Port Sudan.The army-led Transitional Sovereignty Council said they discussed the "siege imposed by the terrorist Rapid Support militia on El-Fasher."Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), called for safe passage for civilians trapped in the fighting.Access to the city remains severely restricted due to ongoing combat.Since August, the RSF have intensified artillery and drone attacks on El-Fasher, gradually eroding the army's last defensive positions.Despite repeated international appeals for a ceasefire, with both the RSF and the army accused of committing atrocities, neither side has shown willingness to compromise.Representatives from the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates met in Washington on Friday to plot a path towards "peace and stability in Sudan" and a transition to civilian rule, according to a statement by US senior advisor for Africa Massad Boulos.But the meeting appeared not to yield any tangible progress."It is clear that... it is not only a Sudanese problem, with the army and Rapid Support Forces fighting each other," Guterres said."We have more and more an external interference that undermines the possibility to a ceasefire and to a political solution."

More than a year of siege in the western Sudanese city of El-Fasher has forced some civilians to turn to animal skins for food as the country's war grinds on.El-Fasher is the last major holdout in the vast western Darfur region against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the regular army since April 2023.With the RSF's nearly 18-month siege cutting off humanitarian aid to the city -- home to 400,000 trapped civilians -- El-Fasher has run out of almost everything."After not eating for three days, three of my neighbours and I roasted cowhide," said Salah Abdallah, 47."Even then, it was difficult to get firewood to light a fire."Soup kitchens, until recently run by volunteers, have closed for lack of supplies.A civilian group documenting the civil war's abuses, the El-Fasher resistance committee, posted a video on social media on Wednesday showing rolls of animal skin sizzling on a small wood fire."The people of El-Facher are now eating cowhide to survive because there isn't even any animal fodder left," the committee wrote.Livestock feed, once used as a meal of last resort, has become scarce and exorbitantly priced.On X, a user who shared the video said they were "old skins" used to stave off hunger.Since August the RSF has stepped up its artillery and drone bombardments in an attempt to take the strategic city.In recent weeks the paramilitaries have seized control of several sectors of El-Fasher, and are wearing down the army's last strongholds bit by bit.After fleeing his Awlad Al-Rif neighbourhood in El-Fasher, which fell to the RSF in recent weeks, Salah Adam found refuge in a reception centre in the city's Daraja Oula quarter."My family left the city three months ago. I stayed behind to keep an eye on our home," the 28-year-old university student explained."In the first two days after the soup kitchens shut down, I shared one bowl of corn porridge without salt with another family," he said, adding that he had not eaten since Wednesday."I will leave the city, no matter the danger."According to satellite images analysed by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, the RSF have dug nearly 68 kilometres of earthwork embankments around the city. A corridor just three to four kilometres wide is the only exit.The war in Sudan was triggered by a power struggle between two former allies: General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army commander and de facto ruler of Sudan since a 2021 coup, and General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, head of the RSF.The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and pushed nearly 25 million into acute hunger.According to the United Nations, more than one million people have fled El-Fasher since the war began, accounting for 10 percent of all internally displaced people in the country.Among them is Ibrahim Osman, who now lives in Tawila, around 70 kilometres west of the city."I had decided not to leave it at all, despite the never-ending bombardment, but the fear of dying of hunger pushed me to leave," the 36-year-old said.The population of the city, once the region's largest, has decreased by about 62 percent, the UN's migration agency said.If El-Fasher falls to the RSF, the paramilitaries will have control of the entire Darfur region, where they have sought to establish a rival administration.The army holds the country's north, centre and east, while the RSF holds sway in the west and parts of the south.

Late-season flooding hits villages in Egypt's Nile DeltaEgypt blames Ethiopia's 'reckless unilateral' management of its grand damEthiopia rejects charge, says regulated water releases reduced impactIOM says about 1,200 Sudanese families displacedRising Nile waters inundated homes and fields in northern Egypt over the weekend, forcing residents to move by boat and intensifying a war of words between Cairo and Addis Ababa over whether Ethiopia's giant Nile dam has worsened seasonal floods.In the Nile Delta village of Dalhamo, in Menoufia Governorate, some 50 km northwest of Cairo, men paddled wooden boats through narrow lanes where water lapped at the walls of their homes."We lost everything," said fisherman Saied Gameel, standing knee-deep in his flooded house. "The water level is extremely high, much higher this year ... before it would rise for two days and then recede."The Nile has long been affected by seasonal flooding due to monsoon rainfall in the Ethiopian Highlands that usually peaks in July and August. But this year a late-season surge has pushed north from Ethiopia, through Sudan, and into Egypt.In Sudan, the UN migration agency said floods in Bahri, Khartoum state, displaced about 1,200 families last week and destroyed homes, compounding an 18-month war that has crippled the country's response.Egypt's Water Resources and Irrigation Ministry has accused Ethiopia of "reckless unilateral" operation of its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, saying sharp, unannounced swings in water releases after the dam's September 9 inauguration helped trigger a "man-made, late flood".It said, in a statement on October 3, that discharges jumped to about 485 million cubic metres on September 10 and as high as 780 million on September 27 before easing, straining Sudan's Roseires Dam and pushing excess water through to Egypt.Ethiopia, which sees the $5 billion dam as central to its development, rejected Cairo's claims, describing Egypt's statement as "malicious and riddled with numerous baseless claims".In a statement on October 4, its Water and Energy Ministry said regulated releases from the Blue Nile project had reduced flood impacts and that without it heavy rain "would have caused historic destruction in Sudan and Egypt".Ethiopia inaugurated the dam on September 9, with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed saying it was built "to prosper, to electrify the entire region, and to change the history of black people", insisting it was "not to harm its brothers".The dam is designed to generate 5,150 megawatts of power and hold up to 74 billion cubic metres of water in its lake.Cairo bitterly opposed the dam from the start, arguing that it violated water treaties dating back to the early part of the last century and poses an existential threat.Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said in a press conference on October 2 that authorities had anticipated higher-than-normal flows this month and warned that low-lying tracts in Menoufia and neighbouring Beheira, long encroached by informal building and farming on the river's floodplain, were at risk.Health teams were deployed to flooded areas over the weekend.Back in Dalhamo, Gameel said residents were still waiting for help."People were warned before the water rose, but there's nowhere else for anyone," he said. "When the water rises, everyone ends up staying on top of their houses."