United Nations experts have warned that Sudan’s Darfur region faces a growing risk of genocide as the world’s attention focuses on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
Alice Wairimu Nderitu, special adviser to the UN secretary-general on the prevention of genocide, told the BBC’s Newsday programme: “We do have situations where genocide may occur or has occurred.”
She said many civilians have been targeted because of their ethnicity in Sudan’s besieged city of El Fasher, where heavy fighting has intensified in recent days.
A medical charity in the city reported that more than 700 people had died in 10 days.
El Fasher is the last major urban center in Darfur still controlled by Sudanese forces.
The army has been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year in a civil war that has killed thousands and forced millions from their homes.
Local resident Ibrahim al-Tayeb al-Faki told the BBC that his sister was killed in a military airstrike and his home was destroyed.
The 47-year-old told the BBC that he had sent his three children to live with their grandfather but his house was also attacked. The family is now taking shelter among the rubble.
“There is no safe place for Fasher now,” he said.
Citing United Nations analysis of increasing risk factors, Ms Nderitu said the situation was evolving into a genocide “similar to Rwanda” in 1994.
She added: “The conflict has opened an alarming chapter as hostilities in El Fasher intensify.”
“I’m calling attention to this particular conflict. I’ve been trying to make my voice heard, but my voice has been drowned out by other wars in Ukraine and Gaza.”
Similar concerns about possible genocide in Darfur Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently stated that.
A report by the movement said paramilitary forces and their Arab allies had committed ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity against the region’s Masalit and non-Arab communities.
It called for sanctions against those responsible for the atrocities, including Doctors Without Borders leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedi.
The current violence erupts over longstanding tensions over resources between non-Arab farming communities, including Masalit, and Arab pastoralist communities.
Internet access has been cut as soldiers from Doctors Without Borders continue to besiege the city, making access difficult.
The United Nations says some 15,000 people are feared to have been killed in El Geneina, West Darfur, last year.
Last June, West Darfur governor Khamis Abakar was killed hours after accusing MSF troops of genocide. He is the highest-ranking official known to have been killed since the conflict began in April.
Doctors Without Borders says it is not involved in what it calls “tribal conflicts” in Darfur.
The paramilitary group grew out of the Janjaweed militia, which has been accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing of non-Arab communities in Darfur after the rebels took up arms in 2003, accusing the government of neglecting the region.
