Thousands of civilians are feared trapped and in imminent danger in the Sudanese city of Al Fasher after its fall to paramilitaries, Doctors Without Borders said Saturday, as Germany's top diplomat described the situation there as "apocalyptic".
At war with the regular army since April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces seized Al Fasher on Sunday, pushing the military out of its last stronghold in Darfur after a grinding 18-month siege marked by starvation and bombardment.
Since the city's fall, reports have emerged of summary executions, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions, while communications remain largely cut off.
Survivors from Al Fasher who reached the nearby town of Tawila have told AFP of mass killings, children shot before their parents, and civilians beaten and robbed as they fled.
Thousands remain trapped
The UN says more than 65,000 people have fled Al 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 NGO added 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", said MSF head of emergencies Michel Olivier Lacharite.
"Where are all the missing people who have already survived months of famine and violence in El-Fasher?" he added.
"The most likely, albeit frightening, answer is that they are being killed, blocked, and hunted down when trying to flee."
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.
‘Apocalyptic situation’
Survivors reported that people were separated based on their gender, age or presumed ethnicity, and that many were still being held for ransom.
The UN said 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.
At a conference in Bahrain on Saturday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Sudan was "absolutely an apocalyptic situation, the greatest humanitarian crisis of the world".
He added that the RSF had "pledged to protect civilians and they will be held accountable for these actions".
Speaking at the same event, British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper also described the reported abuses as "truly horrifying".
"Atrocities, mass executions, starvation and the devastating use of rape as a weapon of war, with women and children bearing the brunt of the largest humanitarian crisis in the 21st century," she said.
The RSF descended from the Janjaweed militias accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago and has faced war crimes accusations over the course of the current conflict.
The US has previously determined the RSF committed genocide in Darfur.
