UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- UN humanitarian workers are being blocked from reaching civilians trapped inside El Fasher, the capital of Sudan's North Darfur state, amid reports that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces took over the city on Sunday, UN officials said.
With fighters pushing further into the city and escape routes cut off, hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped and terrified, shelled, starving, and without access to food, health care, or safety, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said, emphasizing the urgent need to protect civilians and to ensure safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access.
In a statement released Sunday, Fletcher also called for an immediate ceasefire in El Fasher, across the western Darfur region and throughout Sudan.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that more than 26,000 people fled El Fasher between Sunday and Monday toward Mellit and Tawila, where UN humanitarian teams are on the ground monitoring the situation and coordinating the humanitarian response.
The IOM said that fighting has also intensified in North Kordofan state, where several civilians reportedly were killed and infrastructure looted over the weekend.
The Sudan Doctors Network, a medical association, reported that 47 civilians were killed in the city of Bara. The IOM estimated that the clashes displaced 340 people from Um Bashar village in the Ar Rahad area on Sunday.
Denise Brown, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said that more than 200 malnourished and dehydrated men, women and children, some injured, arrived on Sunday by truck in Tawila, the epicenter for displaced people in the region, about 40 km from El Fasher.
All of the civilians in the trucks were traumatized, Brown said Monday in a video briefing with reporters, adding roads out of the city are dangerous and travelers are often blocked and even held for ransom.
"Over the past 24 hours, we have received multiple reports of an intensification in the fighting in El Fasher," Brown said, adding the United Nations and partners have had 42 trucks on standby, ready to deliver aid to El Fasher.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Monday warned of a further sharp deterioration in the situation in El Fasher, calling on all parties to immediately halt hostilities in Sudan, uphold international humanitarian law, and ensure the unhindered delivery of life-saving assistance to people in dire need across Sudan. ■
