UN aid chief calls suffering of civilians in Sudan’s Darfur ‘unspeakable’

Tom Fletcher, the United Nations aid chief, describes the suffering of displaced civilians in Sudan’s North Darfur state as “unspeakable,” saying more than half of the fleeing survivors are children.

“Unspeakable suffering in Tawila. Over half of the fleeing survivors are children,” Tom Fletcher said on Sunday, in a post on the US social media company X.

“One injured woman I met walked into the camp after surviving an attack, carrying her friend's starving child,” he added. “They're asking the world if help is coming.”

The UN relief agency said in a Facebook post that Fletcher visited Tawila and “met and spoke to women who fled Al Fasher only a few weeks ago.”

‘World must do better’

He said the displaced Sudanese “carry terrifying stories of brutal violence. The world has not protected them. We must do better.”

According to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Fletcher visited El-Geneina in West Darfur and Zalingei in Central Darfur.

Earlier this week, Fletcher flew into Port Sudan in eastern Sudan, where he met with the head of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that the total number of displaced people from Al Fasher and surrounding villages has surpassed 99,000 since Oct. 26.

Who holds where?

Last month, the RSF seized Al Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and was accused of massacres. The group controls all five Darfur states, out of Sudan’s 18 states, while the army holds most of the remaining 13 states, including Khartoum.

Darfur makes up about one-fifth of Sudan’s territory, but most of the country’s 50 million people live in army-held areas.

The conflict in Sudan between the army and the RSF, which began in April 2023, has killed at least 40,000 people and displaced 12 million, according to the World Health Organization.