Guardian: The Rapid Support Forces massacres turned El Fasher into a human slaughterhouse policy

The Guardian newspaper said that the city of El Fasher is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the history of the Sudanese war, as up to 150,000 of its residents are believed to have been lost since it fell into the hands of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

This comes 6 weeks after the Rapid Support took control of the city following a starvation siege that lasted 500 days, at a time when the forces are working to hide evidence related to the scale of the massacre they committed, as the British newspaper says.

The Guardian explained that recent satellite images revealed the spread of dozens of piles of bodies in the streets of the capital of North Darfur, which had turned into a “vast crime scene” and a “human slaughterhouse.” It said that analyzes indicate that the bodies were collected in dozens of piles in preparation for burial in mass graves or burning in large pits, as the images showed.

Although the final toll of victims is not clear – as the newspaper says – British representatives were informed that at least 60,000 people were killed in El Fasher, while about 150,000 residents of the city are still missing, without any evidence of their departure.

Analyzes of the Yale University team, which is monitoring the situation via satellite, indicate that the markets were completely emptied, the livestock were transported out of the city, and local sources spoke of limited arrests, which does not explain the disappearance of tens of thousands of residents, according to the newspaper.

Despite previous pledges from the Rapid Support Forces, the city remains – according to the newspaper – closed to the United Nations and humanitarian organizations, and relief convoys are still waiting in nearby areas due to the lack of security guarantees for their entry.

At the same time, those who managed to flee are suffering from severe levels of malnutrition, which has prompted international experts to declare El Fasher an area experiencing an actual famine, says the Guardian.

Human rights experts warn that what happened in El Fasher may be the worst war crime in the Sudanese conflict, which in about 32 months has killed up to 400,000 people and displaced about 13 million people.

Meanwhile, calls were renewed to open an international investigation into the Rapid Support Forces attack on Zamzam camp near El Fasher 6 months ago, which Amnesty International documented as a large-scale attack that targeted civilians and destroyed vital facilities, and called for it to be investigated as a war crime.