More than 136,000 people flee fighting in Sennar state: UN

Aid agencies warned of famine, mainly in RSF-controlled areas across Sudan.

The RSF began a campaign on 24 June to seize the city of Sennar, but quickly turned to the smaller towns of Sinjah and Al-Dinder. This prompted an exodus of civilians from all three, mainly to neighbouring Al-Gedaref and Blue Nile states.

Images on social media showed people of all ages wading across the Blue Nile.

Activists in both states say that there is little shelter or food aid for the incomers. In Gedaref, they faced downpours of heavy rain while stranded in the state capital’s main market with no tents or blankets after schools that had served as displacement centres were emptied by the government, explained the local resistance committee.

The UN Migration Agency (IOM) said the state was already home to more than 285,000 people displaced from Khartoum and Al-Gezira states.

It said villages in Gedaref state, one of several possible targets for the RSF campaign, had already witnessed people fleeing due to the fighting.

At least 12 people were reportedly killed by artillery fire on a livestock market in the city of Al Fasher on Wednesday, amid warnings on an immediate ceasefire in the area

(ST)