Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces announced on Friday their readiness to open safe corridors for civilians to exit from the city of El Fasher to safe areas and provide them with protection.
“We assure all citizens that they are free to choose to stay or leave the city to any destination of their choice, as there is no quarantine for any citizen and the RSF has no hostility with any party,” the RSF statement said.
In the statement, the forces expressed their readiness to “open safe paths for the exit of citizens to other, safer areas of their voluntary choice and to provide them with protection.”
“We call on our citizens in the city of El Fasher to stay away from the areas of clashes and areas that are candidates for targeting by aircraft and not to respond to malicious calls to mobilize the people and plunge them into the midst of war,” the statement said.
Since the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023 between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced from their homes.
The United Nations warned on Friday that it had received only 12 percent of the $2.7 billion in funding it had requested to help some 15 million people in Sudan.
Jens Larke, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said the funding shortfall could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe, with famine, disease spreading and increased fighting looming in densely populated areas, particularly in Darfur.
The United Nations has expressed grave concern over reports of escalating fighting in densely populated areas as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) try to take control of El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur still under Sudanese government control.
Sudan denies reports of famine in Zamzam camp for displaced people in North Darfur