Port Sudan (Sudan) (AFP) - Thousands of civilians remained trapped in Sudan’s stricken city of El-Fasher, with fears growing for their safety, the United Nations and local groups said on Monday, after paramilitary forces claimed control of the army’s last stronghold in the western Darfur region.

Since May 2024, El-Fasher has been besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been fighting a brutal war with Sudan’s army for over two years.

Footage shared by pro-democracy activists on Monday purportedly showed dozens of people lying dead on the ground alongside burned-out vehicles.

AFP was unable to contact civilians in the city, where the Sudanese Journalists’ Syndicate says communications, including satellite networks, have been cut off by a media blackout.

The syndicate expressed “deep concern for the safety of journalists” in El-Fasher, adding that independent reporter Muammar Ibrahim has been detained by RSF forces since Sunday.

The RSF said on Sunday they had seized control of the city, but the army and its allies did not respond to requests for comment.

If confirmed, the city’s capture would mark a significant turning point in Sudan’s war, which has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 12 million people since April 2023.

It would give the RSF control over all five state capitals in Darfur, consolidating its parallel administration in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.

Such a shift could potentially partition Sudan, with the army holding the north, east and centre, and the RSF dominating Darfur and parts of the south.

“This represents a terrible escalation in the conflict,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in answer to an AFP question on Monday, adding that “the level of suffering that we are witnessing in Sudan is unbearable”.

Around 260,000 civilians, half of them children, remain trapped in El-Fasher without aid, where many have resorted to eating animal fodder.

Despite RSF assurances of civilian protection, the local resistance committee accused the paramilitaries of committing atrocities, saying that since Sunday, innocent civilians had suffered “the worst forms of violence and ethnic cleansing.”

A video circulated by the RSF appeared to show fighters detaining dozens of men in civilian clothing accusing them of supporting the army and the Joint Forces.

- Hundreds flee -

Fighting, pro-democracy activists said on Sunday night, continued “in the vicinity of El-Fasher airport and several areas west of the city,” with a “complete absence of air support”, citing failures by the army and its allies to protect residents.

The army-aligned governor of Darfur called on Monday for the protection of civilians in El-Fasher and demanded “an independent investigation into the violations and massacres carried out by the militia away from public view.”

The UN last month voiced alarm over potential massacres targeting non-Arab communities in El-Fasher, similar to those reported after the RSF captured the nearby Zamzam camp in April.

The United Nations’s migration agency said 2,500 to 3,000 people fled El-Fasher on Sunday, seeking safety within the city or westward to Tawila and Mellit towns.

Sudan’s de facto leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, appeared publicly on Sunday night but only for a meeting with the Turkish ambassador in Port Sudan.

The army-led Transitional Sovereignty Council said they discussed the “siege imposed by the terrorist Rapid Support militia on El-Fasher.”

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), called for safe passage for civilians trapped in the fighting.

Access to the city remains severely restricted due to ongoing combat.

- ‘External interference’ -

Since August, the RSF have intensified artillery and drone attacks on El-Fasher, gradually eroding the army’s last defensive positions.

Despite repeated international appeals for a ceasefire, with both the RSF and the army accused of committing atrocities, neither side has shown willingness to compromise.

Representatives from the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates met in Washington on Friday to plot a path towards “peace and stability in Sudan” and a transition to civilian rule, according to a statement by US senior advisor for Africa Massad Boulos.

But the meeting appeared not to yield any tangible progress.

“It is clear that… it is not only a Sudanese problem, with the army and Rapid Support Forces fighting each other,” Guterres said.

“We have more and more an external interference that undermines the possibility to a ceasefire and to a political solution.”

The United Arab Emirates has long been accused of supplying advanced weaponry and drones to the RSF – allegations it denies. Egypt, which shares a border with Sudan, has been a key ally of the army.

Now well into its third year, the war has spiralled into what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.