UN demands access to El Fasher, and Trump’s advisor calls for a humanitarian truce news

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan called on the Rapid Support Forces to allow access to the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, and to provide safe passages for civilians, while US President Donald Trump’s Africa Affairs Advisor called on the Rapid Support Forces to move towards a three-month humanitarian truce.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Denise Brown, said that rapid support must allow the United Nations to reach El Fasher and provide safe passage for civilians, adding that civilians in El Fasher are trying to flee, but the roads they are taking are unsafe.

The Ministry of Health in the Darfur region called on the United Nations and human rights organizations to take urgent action to save civilians in El Fasher, and said that El Fasher is experiencing the worst humanitarian disaster in the world because of the massacres it has been exposed to.

The Ministry added that the Rapid Support Forces committed heinous massacres, physical liquidations, ethnic cleansing and systematic killing, and since Saturday carried out acts of revenge against civilians in the city of El Fasher.

On Monday, a civil society organization in Sudan revealed the arrival of 1,117 newly displaced people from the city of El Fasher to the Tawila area in North Darfur state, west of the country, as a result of the escalation in violence and insecurity.

Yesterday, Sunday, the International Organization for Migration announced the displacement of between 2,500 and 3,000 people as a result of clashes between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces in the city of El Fasher.

Clashes continued on Monday between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces west of the city of El Fasher, according to the Resistance Committees Coordination Committee. While the army did not issue any comment, the Rapid Support Forces said that its forces “are still active, cleaning the city of El Fasher and eliminating the last pockets of the enemy (referring to the Sudanese army).”

Humanitarian truce

In the same context, Massad Boulos, advisor to US President Donald Trump for African affairs, called on both sides of the fighting in Sudan to discuss and approve a humanitarian truce proposal immediately.

He added that he presented a humanitarian truce paper for a period of 3 months, which was welcomed by both sides of the fighting in Sudan, and he called on the Rapid Support Forces to move towards a humanitarian truce and stop the fighting.

Boulos said in statements yesterday that the world is watching with great concern the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and the situation in the city of El Fasher, calling for the protection of civilians.

He called for opening humanitarian corridors “immediately” to enable civilians in El Fasher to reach safe areas, saying that the Rapid Support Forces must move immediately to protect civilians in the city.

Thousands of families in the besieged city suffer from an acute shortage of food, medicine, and potable water, in light of the interruption of supply as a result of the siege and the prevention of the entry of humanitarian aid by Rapid Support, which puts the lives of civilians, especially children and the elderly, at risk of famine and epidemics.

Last Thursday, 4 United Nations agencies, International Migration, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Program, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said that there are 260,000 civilians trapped in El Fasher, including 130,000 children who suffer from lack of food and lack of health services.

It is noteworthy that the Rapid Support Forces announced yesterday morning, Sunday, their control of the city of El Fasher, after a siege that lasted more than a year. Sudanese military sources told Al Jazeera that the Sudanese army evacuated the division headquarters in the city of El Fasher for “tactical reasons.”

If El Fasher falls, this will mean RSF control over all five states of the Darfur region, and dividing the country between an east controlled by the Sudanese army and a west under RSF control.

Since April 15, 2023, the army and the Rapid Support Forces have been waging a war that many regional and international mediations have not succeeded in ending, during which about 20,000 people were killed and more than 15 million displaced and refugees were displaced, according to international and local reports, while a study prepared by American universities estimated the death toll at about 130,000 people.