RSF makes progress on the army in combat to El-Fasher

Ahmed Abdul Rahman can hear the deaf noise of artillery from which he is in a group of fortune tents in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher.

The 13 -year -old boy was injured in a recent bombing attack.

“I feel pain in my head and my legs,” he said weakly.

For 17 months, rapid paramilitary forces (RSF) besieged El-Fasher, located in their ethnic heart in Darfur, and now they are getting closer to key military sites in the city.

The conflict in Sudan broke out in 2023 following a power struggle between the best commanders of the RSF and the Sudanese army.

After losing control of the capital Khartoum, the paramilitaries intensified the efforts to grasp El -Fasher – the last bastion of the army in the region of western Darfur.

The territory held from the army has narrowed to a pocket around the airport. For the tens of thousands of civilians trapped inside the city, every day is a nightmare.

Headquarters and fights make it very difficult to obtain reliable information, but the BBC worked with independent journalists inside El-Fasher to have a glimpse of life for those who are trapped there.

Warning: This story contains graphic details that some people may find painful

Ahmed’s “whole body is full of bus,” said his mother Islam Abdullah. “His condition is unstable.”

But with hospitals under fire and short of supplies, medical care is rare.

She raises Ahmed’s shirt to reveal her wounds, her bone by recalling a recall of hunger tracking the city.

Nearby, Hamida Adam Ali is unable to move, her leg is seriously injured. She was lying on the road for five days after being struck by shell fire, before she was transported to the camp for people displaced by the conflict.

“I don’t know if my husband is dead or alive,” she said. “My children have been crying for days because there is no food. Sometimes they find something to eat and sometimes they are going to bed without food. My leg is rotting – it smells rude now. I’m just lying down. I have nothing.”

The RSF has made significant progress in recent weeks. They published images showing their fighters in a place that the BBC identified as the seat of the armored body of the military.

There are other bases nearby than the Army of Sudan, including its sixth infantry division, always defends.

In the past few days, he has published a video of soldiers who will encourage the arrival of essential supplies, which would have been delivered by Airdrops.

But in the media war that supervises battles, RSF fighters celebrate what they portray as an imminent victory in El-Fasher.

The total takeover of the city would give them a strategic advantage in the civil war after the backs earlier this year, attenuating their access to Libya and strengthening their control over the western border in a arch that extends from South Sudan to certain parts of Egypt, Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair told the BBC.

“The RSF could bring more fuel from the south of Libya, more weapons, also from southern Libya, and could protect their transit from the border region to the Darfur,” she said.

“And from El-Fasher, the RSF would be able to again launch attacks in the Kordofan regions and in the capital (Khartoum). And therefore, it would really position the RSF much more strongly militarily.”

Local armed groups known as joint forces that are fighting alongside the army also have a lot at stake.

“For joint forces, it is a fight for their homeland,” explains Ms. Khair. “This is a struggle for their capacity as armed groups to claim the constituencies in Darfur. If they lose the Darfur, they in fact have no more demand for Darfur … It is a fight for their political survival.”

The RSF advance is fueled by increasingly fatal and sophisticated drones that would be supplied by the United Arab Emirates (Water), which the rich state of the Gulf denies Despite the evidence of surveys by war monitors, including UN experts.

Images verified by the BBC show that drones hitting what seems to be a location near a military site, but also an informal market – civilians are not spared.

Last month, more than 75 people were killed in a strike on a mosque during morning prayers, in an attack attributed to the RSF, although this did not take public responsibility. The rescuers could not find enough funeral shroud for all bodies.

Samah Abdullah Hussein says that his young son Samir was buried in this mass grave. He had been killed the day before, his injured brother. The shells struck the school courtyard where they had taken refuge.

“He was touched on the head and the wound was deep, his brain came out,” she said, wiping the tears of her eyes. “My other son was hit in the head by bursts of shells and in his arm, and I was touched on my right leg.”

Hundreds of thousands have fled El-Fasher in the past year. Those who go safe say that people have been attacked, stolen and killed when they left.

The UN warns against more atrocities if the RSF fighters have invaded the city.

Paramilitarians deny targeting non -Arab ethnic groups, such as the local community of Zaghawa, despite proofs of war crimes presented by the UN and human rights groups. They try to send a different message – with new videos showing them the greeting and helping him to those who flee.

The images are a shock for a refugee who looks from the outside of the country, despite its softer tone. He recognizes that many people are arrested by RSF fighters.

“The latter guy with whom we play football,” he said at the BBC, “and the one in the middle, he is a musician, I know him from El-Fasher.”

The refugee also sees some parents of the group – and asked not to be appointed to protect them.

“It really devastated me and shocked me,” he said. “I will be worried until I hear their news, or they send me a message that they are doing well, and they are in a safe place.”

Later in the day, he made me say that his family members were safe – a huge relief, but temporary.

“It’s not just my loved ones,” he said. “These are all the people I know. These are my memories there. I see every day, people I know die, places where I was going to destroy. My memories are dead, not only the people I know. It’s like a nightmare.”

Many fear what the next few weeks could bring. Those who are always trapped in the city can only wait – and try to survive.