More than 62,000 people have fled Al-Fashir in Sudan’s North Darfur region within four days of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seizing the city, according to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Field teams from IOM estimated that between October 26 and 29, a total of 62,263 people escaped Al-Fashir and surrounding villages, with roughly 26,000 fleeing on October 29 alone due to escalating insecurity.
The Sudan Doctors Network reported that 4,500 people also left the city of Bara in North Kordofan state, citing RSF violations against civilians. Many of these displaced families are moving toward El-Obeid, facing harsh conditions and severe shortages of food, water, and shelter.
Al-Fashir came under RSF control on Sunday after months of siege, with rights groups accusing the paramilitary force of carrying out mass killings, arbitrary detentions, and attacks on hospitals.
Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since April 2023, with fighting between the national army and the RSF displacing millions of people across the country and leaving vast regions struggling with humanitarian crises.
Both groups used to work together after Sudan’s former dictator, Omar al-Bashir, was removed from power in 2019. They promised to lead Sudan to democracy. But later, they started fighting each other for the people each wants to rule the country alone.
This is not just a simple battle: ordinary people are being killed in large numbers, many of them not fighters.
It’s happening in places where people should feel relatively safe (homes, hospitals, mosques) and they are not.
Most victims are ordinary Sudanese people, families, children, and women who have nothing to do with the war. Many are being killed, and others are starving or trapped because aid can’t reach them.
