Sudan: Death, disease and despair as fighting closes in on besieged Sudanese city
At the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people on the northern fringe of El Fasher in North Darfur, about seven people a day arrive with injuries sustained from nearby clashes between fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and groups allied to the Sudanese army. For months now the RSF have been besieging El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, trapping a million people in the last major population centre in Sudan’s vast Darfur region not under paramilitary control. In the early months of the siege the city was protected by a fragile peace, but since April violence on its outskirts has soared after its two most powerful armed groups – which had helped to keep the peace – pledged to fight alongside the army. Fighting is particularly intense near Abu Shouk, where the army-aligned groups are taking on RSF fighters stationed to the north. Shells have fallen inside the camp, killing dozens of people. Deaths and injuries as a direct consequence of the violence are far from the only challenge facing Haroun Adam Haroun, the sole doctor working at Abu Shouk. Hundreds of people have died in recent months from acute malnutrition, women have had miscarriages, and scores of malaria cases are being registered every day. He is also troubled by a strange respiratory disease that has swept through the camp, which he suspects is linked to pollution from the shelling. “I am very sad that people are dying from preventable causes and we cannot do anything for them,” Haroun said. “There is an extreme lack of medicines and funding. People here have lost all means of income and the world isn’t helping.” The war in Sudan broke out on 15 April last year, pitting the army, headed by the country’s de facto leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the RSF, commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Experts have said the country is at risk of breaking apart. According to the United Nations, Sudan “is experiencing a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions”, with famine threatening and more than 8.7 million people uprooted – more than in anywhere else in the world. Follow link for full story....