By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA (Reuters) -Some children fleeing the Sudanese city of al-Fashir are arriving at a humanitarian camp in north Darfur so severely malnourished that treatment may not be able to save them, an international organisation operating there said on Thursday.
“People arrive so dehydrated they cannot talk,” said Mathilde Vu from the Norwegian Refugee Council, describing the harsh journey through desert-like conditions from al-Fashir, Darfur’s largest city, to Tawila.
Some people were surviving off animal feed and rainwater and the over-stretched humanitarian response may be insufficient to save all the children fleeing the siege, where starvation was used as a weapon of war, she said.
“You have children who’ve been so malnourished, so famished during this past few months in al-Fashir that even with treatment, maybe they won’t survive.”
Since al-Fashir was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) two weeks ago, up to 10,000 people have arrived in Tawila. The town was already overwhelmed by hosting more than 600,000 internally displaced persons since April who had fled previous fighting.
About 82,000 people have fled al-Fashir and surrounding areas since October 26, according to the U.N.. NRC staff said they are “kept up at night” worrying that thousands are still unaccounted for.
As many as 200,000 people may still be trapped inside the city, according to estimates of the city’s population towards the end of the siege.
Famine-stricken al-Fashir was the last stronghold of the Sudanese army in vast western Darfur before falling to the RSF after an 18-month siege. Witnesses have reported mass killings following the RSF takeover, and many residents remain missing.
The RSF has denied abuses and said it has tried to help the population access humanitarian aid.
The NRC described incoming Tawila arrivals as being in a “disturbing” condition and deeply traumatized, but that overcrowding and limited resources of even basic supplies of soap and water are making it difficult to save lives.
The RSF agreed to a ceasefire proposal on Thursday. The Sudanese army did not immediately respond.
The U.N. Human Rights Council will host an emergency session on the situation in al-Fashir, it was announced on Thursday.
The war between the Sudanese army and the RSF that erupted in April 2023 has devastated Sudan, killing tens of thousands of people, causing hunger to spread across the country and displacing millions of people.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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