UN: More than 136,000 people have fled their homes due to fighting in Sennar State

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July 4, 2024 (Khartoum) – More than 136,000 people have fled Sudan’s Sennar state since the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began a series of attacks on towns, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

This is the latest wave of displacement, meaning that more than 8 million people have been displaced since the war broke out in April 2023 between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army.

Aid agencies have warned of famine in areas of Sudan largely controlled by relief teams.

On 24 June, the Rapid Support Forces began their offensive on the city of Sennar but quickly turned to the smaller towns of Sinja and Dinder, which led to a mass exodus of civilians from the three areas, mainly to neighbouring Gedaref and Blue Nile states.

Photos on social media showed people of different ages wading across the Blue Nile.

Activists in both states said the refugees had little shelter or food assistance. In Gedaref, the government emptied the school that served as a center for the displaced, leaving refugees stranded in the state capital’s main market without tents or blankets in a torrential downpour, local resistance committees explained.

The UN migration agency says the state is currently hosting more than 285,000 displaced people from Khartoum and Gezira states.

Reports say that villages in Gedaref state, one of several possible targets for the rapid rescue team’s operations, have seen people fleeing the war.

At least 12 people were reportedly killed on Wednesday when a livestock market in the city of El Fasher was shelled amid warnings of an immediate ceasefire in the area.

(English stone)

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