Sudanese army says it has repelled a major RSF offensive against El Fasher, capital of North Darfur

September 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Sudanese Army has claimed to have repelled a new offensive by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against the city of El Fasher, capital of the North Darfur state, and has stated that the group has suffered “heavy losses” in the fighting, within the framework of the civil war that broke out in April 2023 in the African country.

The spokesman for the Armed Forces, Ahmed Hussein Mustafa, indicated that the RSF had launched a “large-scale attack against the city” and spoke of “a new epic chapter” due to the “serious losses” suffered by the paramilitaries in the clashes, with some 80 dead among the ranks of the group led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias ‘Hemedti’.

The RSF has not commented on the clashes, although social media accounts linked to the paramilitaries have posted messages suggesting the deaths of several of its senior officers, including commander Abdelrahman Qarn Shata, according to the Sudanese news portal Sudan Tribune.

The fighting in El Fasher, which has been under siege for months by paramilitaries trying to seize control of the town, has led to a mass exodus of the population. More than 1.5 million people were seeking refuge from the fighting in the town and surrounding displaced persons camps until the RSF began its offensive in November.

Sudan is in the throes of a civil war following hostilities that broke out in April 2023 amid heightened tensions over the integration of the RSF into the armed forces, a key part of an agreement signed in December to form a new civilian government and revive the open transition following the 2019 overthrow of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, damaged by the coup d’état of October 2021, in which Prime Minister of Unity Abdallah Hamdok was overthrown.

In this context, a group of United Nations experts last week called for the deployment of “an independent and impartial force” to protect the population of Sudan from the “horrible violations” of human rights in the context of the conflict, some of which could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.