Police on Wednesday (November 8) expelled hundreds of Sudanese civilians who had taken refuge in a school in the eastern state of Gedaref, witnesses told AFP, as war rages in Khartoum between the army and the paramilitaries. “The police arrived, ordered us to leave the school in accordance with a decision by the governor and fired tear gas at us,” said Hussein Gomaa, a displaced person from Khartoum.
Gedaref currently hosts 273,000 people displaced by the war that broke out in April between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). A local resident, Amal Hussein, said she saw “police cars surrounding” the school and heard screams.
“We are 770 people who fled the war in Khartoum and we were taking refuge in this school,” Mr. Gomaa told AFP after fleeing the makeshift camp, where he and hundreds of others “received help “. “We don’t understand why we were chased away,” he said. Now, with women and children, we no longer have shelter and do not know where to go. » According to the UN, thousands of people are housed in makeshift shelters such as schools, where there is a lack of food, clean water and healthcare.
Barely two hours after being forcibly evacuated on Wednesday, Suleimane Mohammed, who also lived in the school, explained that they had once again been “evacuated from the dormitories” of Gedaref University’s medical school: “The police claimed that the decision was made by the governor. »
An “unimaginable humanitarian crisis”
After new ceasefire talks sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the United States failed this week, clashes continued on Wednesday, with a local committee of volunteers citing an “intensification of clashes” in a district of north of Khartoum. Of Sudan’s 4.6 million internally displaced people, more than 3 million have fled violence in the capital, according to UN figures.
The country is facing an “unimaginable humanitarian crisis”, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned on Tuesday, stressing that the vast majority of hospitals were closed and that millions of people were in dire need. Urgent help.
In the vast western region of Darfur, scene of some of the worst fighting, the RSF announced that it had taken control of all major towns. Their progress, accompanied by a communications cut, has sparked new fears of mass killings on ethnic lines.
Washington thus expressed concern on Wednesday “by the extreme fighting” in certain places in the country, according to State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel. “The United States strongly condemns the reported ethnically motivated killings by RSF and its allied militias in West Darfur,” he added.