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Khartoum- Re-entry scene Rapid Support Forces To a city Wad Madani The capital of the Sudanese state of Gezira, the scene of the April 15 war brought to the mind of Maryam Ali, who was displaced there from the horrors of battles. KhartoumLet history repeat itself in the same way.
Maryam tells Al Jazeera Net, “When I saw the first rapid support military vehicle arriving at the tray (entrance) of the central market, I felt disappointed, broken and terrified, and that life was about to end.”
The displaced woman explained that before the support forces entered the city and clashes broke out east of it on December 15, columns of smoke rose and the roads were crowded with citizens who packed their belongings. Security chaos appeared and the situation worsened the next day and the number of people fleeing the city increased.
Maryam is still present in the Al-Munira neighborhood in Bud Madani because her family is extended and consists of 22 people. She says, “With the rise in rental prices in the states, we decided to arrange and guarantee the presence of a house, and when conditions were ready, the road was closed.”
Maryam and her family live in fear, fearing attacks or sexual violence from the support forces. She confirms, “We wear a number of clothes and blankets, trying to protect ourselves.”
A major escalation in fighting in Sudan.
The Rapid Support Forces’ control of the city of Wad Madani has led to the displacement of about a quarter of a million in recent days, and rape weapons threaten Sudanese women as health crises worsen.
What are the latest developments in the situation in Sudan? pic.twitter.com/4FWQekEQC7— AJ+ Arabic (@ajplusarabi) December 21, 2023
“ghost town”
“No one walks around the city. Everything in it has been violated. Shops, warehouses, and homes have been stolen and it has become like a ghost town,” this is how eyewitnesses describe – to Al Jazeera Net – what the situation became in Wad Madani after it was once vibrant.
Eyewitnesses from the city denied – to Al Jazeera Net – the presence of army forces there or the occurrence of clashes.
A citizen in one of its neighborhoods – who preferred to withhold his name – said that Wad Madani’s markets were closed except for two on its outskirts, with communication and electricity services fluctuating, which witnessed an outage that lasted about 5 days in a number of villages in the state of Al-Jazira, pointing to the looting of cars and the suffering of obtaining medicines as a result of the theft of hospitals and pharmacies. .
He added that the support forces have a list of names of those they described as belonging to the former regime, and that citizens’ money and phones are sometimes stolen.
The young woman, D.H., described the situation in the city as normal, and “no sounds of bullets except for random shooting in the past days as a form of terrorism against citizens.”
She told Al Jazeera Net that these forces looted the warehouses and shops and shipped them in trucks to Khartoum, and that they closed the road to the state. Sinar They forced a number of civilians to return, while others took the dirt road to leave the city.
Wad Madani and some villages in the state of Al-Jazira are witnessing the closure of vital facilities, as the displaced and forcibly displaced people continue to suffer due to the scarcity of food and medicine.
With the lack of transportation, scarcity of fuel, and theft of cars, the cost of leaving citizens doubled at a time when others traveled hundreds of kilometers on foot, as eyewitnesses from Wad Madani confirmed to Al Jazeera Net.
The head of the family of a cancer patient said – he came from Omdurman To treat his son – the Rapid Support Forces asked them to vacate the rest home for children with cancer patients and accused them of belonging to military intelligence.
He added to Al Jazeera Net, “I went out with 5 people heading to Sinnar state on foot. We covered about 100 kilometers and it took us two days to reach it,” and stressed that his financial situation does not allow covering travel costs.
Tragic situations
As the suffering of civilians in Jazira State worsens, the Hasahisa Resistance Committees – the second largest city in the state controlled by the Support Forces – describe the situation as tragic and say that the state is witnessing a state of insecurity, looting, and the Support Forces threatening rape and looting of markets and hospitals.
The committees added – to Al Jazeera Net – that the violations have not stopped since the support forces entered the region in the absence of the army and police, and famine also threatens the citizens of Al Jazeera State, especially with the failure of the winter season for the agricultural season.
She pointed out that the support forces pledged to resolve the “escape” of their members, but they lose control over them and there is no supervision. There are no means of movement and people resort to moving around on animals.
There were reports of a number of cases of sexual violence in Wad Madani, and a number of families belonging to the regular services are experiencing a state of panic for fear of “liquidation, as the support forces are targeting them and they have hidden themselves to prevent access to them.”
Al Jazeera Net monitored the movement of a number of citizens of the villages in the south of the island following the entry of the Rapid Support, and some of them left for the states of Sennar, andPort SudanGedaref and Khartoum, and others headed to villages described as remote, but the support forces reached some of them and looted the cars that their owners had hidden.
Journalist Azmi Abdel Razek said that most of the residents of the city of Wad Madani decided to stay there, and that their property was looted at gunpoint, and there were massive casualties among civilians, and cases of rape of women.
He added to Al Jazeera Net, “There is no way to transport patients, children and women to safe areas. The entire state of Al Jazeera has been invaded, and thousands of citizens have been unable to leave amidst a state of chaos, terror and siege, and the city has turned into a large prison.”
Azmi continued, “Many families who decided to leave on foot were forcibly prevented by the Rapid Support militia, and they were made human shields. Training camps were opened and young men were forced to carry weapons. There are civilian bodies in the streets and inside homes that have not yet been buried.”
After days of Rapid Support control, all health facilities in the city of Wad Medani are out of service, as is the Doctors Syndicate #Sudan Warns of a serious health disaster pic.twitter.com/uDFlSqcJU8
– Al Jazeera Channel (@AJArabic) December 23, 2023
‘Unacceptable violations’
On the other hand, Ezzat Al-Mahri, the political advisor to the Rapid Support Commander, described the violations as unacceptable and cannot be tolerated.
Al-Mahri told Al-Jazeera Net, “If there are unruly groups that follow the Rapid Support, they must be curbed, even by using force. The property and lives of citizens are more important, and if there are elements of army intelligence or the former regime that want to create a state of panic on the island, they must be confronted.”
He continued, “The island is a large area. There must be cooperation between the local community and the support forces to confront the state of chaos and looting. The directions of the support leadership are clear in this regard.”
For its part, the Federal Ministry of Health reported that the entry of the “Rapid Support Militias” led to the kidney centers on the island being out of work, threatening the lives of two thousand kidney patients who were receiving service through 19 centers, of which only 9 are now operating.
The spokesman for the preliminary committee of the Sudan Doctors Syndicate, Sayed Muhammad Abdullah, said, “After the attack by these forces, Wad Madani hospitals became out of service.”
He added to Al Jazeera Net that more than 90% of medical services were provided in Wad Madani hospitals, and that “some medical personnel were assassinated, others were arrested, and some disappeared.” He appealed to local and regional organizations to intervene to save the health situation, especially with the spread of epidemics.
She said UNHCR in Sudan The conflict in Gezira State forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee, and more than 7,000 of them took refuge in Gedaref State.
According to the International Organization for Migration, between 250,000 and 300,000 people have fled the city of Wad Madani and its surrounding areas since the start of the clashes.
