By Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of people who have fled the Sudanese city of al-Fashir are unaccounted for, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday, raising concerns for their safety after reports of rape, killings and other abuses from escapees.
Famine-stricken al-Fashir was the final stronghold of the Sudanese army in the vast, western Darfur region before it fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on October 26 after an 18-month siege.
People fleeing the city have described civilians being shot in the streets and attacked in drone strikes. Field reports from Darfur describe women foraging for wild leaves and berries to boil into soup.
While the U.N. agency has recorded that nearly 100,000 people fled the city since the takeover, only around 10,000 have been counted at arrival hubs like Tawila, said Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet, UNHCR’s Head of Sub Office from Port Sudan.
“A significant number of people on the move (are) stranded somewhere, not able to move further, because of the danger, or because they risk being sent back into al-Fashir, or because there are very vulnerable people amongst the group,” she told a Geneva press briefing.
Their journeys are becoming longer and more perilous as people increasingly shun well-trodden routes to avoid armed checkpoints, she said.
Some have travelled as far as 1,000 kilometres (660 miles) to Ad Dabba in Northern State.
It is unclear how many people remain in al-Fashir, with local sources telling UNHCR that thousands are either prevented from leaving or lacking the means or strength to flee, according to the UNHCR.
Fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese army has now shifted to Kordofan, a region serving as a buffer between the RSF’s western Darfur strongholds and the army-held states in the east of Sudan.
“We are concerned that in Kordofan the further escalation of the conflict may also lead to further displacement,” said Parlevliet.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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