MSF warns hundreds of thousands who fled El‑Fasher remain unaccounted for
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned on Friday that the whereabouts and condition of hundreds of thousands who fled ethnically targeted violence in the western Sudanese city of El‑Fasher remain unknown, after satellite imagery indicated suspected mass graves.
Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been fighting the Sudanese army since 2023, seized the strategic Darfur city last month following an 18‑month siege. Aid groups and survivors report executions, sexual violence and abductions in and around El‑Fasher.
MSF's newly elected president, Javid Abdelmoneim, said that roughly 5,000 people have reached the town of Tawila — about 70 kilometres (40 miles) west — but added that the location and safety of many more is unknown.
"Our main concern is that though we have seen approximately 5,000 people coming out of El‑Fasher towards Tawila, we don't know where the other hundreds of thousands have gone," Abdelmoneim told reporters in Johannesburg.
Abdelmoneim, a UK‑born Sudanese‑Iranian doctor with extensive MSF field experience, described survivors' accounts as "harrowing" and said six out of ten adults screened by the charity showed signs of severe starvation.
The fall of El‑Fasher gives paramilitary forces control of all five state capitals in Darfur, fuelling fears that Sudan could be effectively split along an east–west axis and further limiting safe movement for civilians and aid workers.
Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) reported evidence consistent with "body disposal activities," identifying at least two earth disturbances that appear consistent with mass graves near a mosque and the former Children’s Hospital.
The conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and triggered what the United Nations describes as the world's largest displacement and hunger crisis, with both sides accused of widespread atrocities.
Why this matters: The combination of large-scale displacement, reports of ethnically targeted violence and satellite evidence of possible mass graves underscores the urgent need for independent investigations, humanitarian access and civilian protection.
