The number of internally displaced people in Sudan has reached more than 10 million as war continues in their country, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) revealed on Monday.
More than 2 million other people have been driven abroad, mostly to neighbouring Chad, South Sudan and Egypt, the UN agency spokesman Mohammedali Abunajela said.
He explained that the number of internally displaced people in Sudan reached 10 million.
On the other hand, the UN denounced an attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a hospital in Sudan’s Al Fasher, located north of Darfur.
“The escalating violence in Sudan’s Al Fasher is dealing a crushing blow to civilians at their most vulnerable,” UN relief chief Martin Griffiths wrote on X.
Griffiths said he is “horrified by news of the RSF attack on South Hospital” and noted that “the fighting, looting and atrocities we are seeing in Sudan over and over again – they must stop now.”
The main hospital in El Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, was rendered inoperable on Sunday due to fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces.
According to a statement from the Sudan Doctors Syndicate, “The storming of the Southern El Fasher Hospital by the Rapid Support was accompanied by looting, the capture of patients’ companions, and attacks on citizens and hospital workers.”
The attacks caused “varying injuries among them, including injuries to medical personnel, and their condition is now stable,” the Syndicate continued.
“The hospital stopped operating due to this incident, and it is one of the few remaining service windows for the city’s citizens,” it said.
Since May 10, El Fasher has witnessed clashes between the army, supported by armed movements that signed a peace agreement, and the RSF, despite warnings from the international community about the fighting in the city, which serves as the humanitarian operations hub for all of Darfur state.
Since mid-April last year, the Sudanese army and the RSF have been waging a war that has left around 15,000 dead and more than 8 million displaced and refugees, according to the UN.
The civil war in Sudan has resulted in a continuous increase in the number of displaced people and refugees, which presents a serious humanitarian crisis that calls for an immediate response and international intervention to address, support, and guarantee the necessary protection and assistance for the displaced and refugees.
The Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK had called on the warring parties in Sudan to immediately stop the ongoing conflict and seek a peaceful solution through a comprehensive national dialogue.
AOHR UK also called on the UN Security Council to take immediate action and call for a ceasefire to save innocent lives at risk.
