El Fasher, December 23 (Darfur24)
Three survivors of Rapid Support Forces detention centers, including two health sources, revealed on Monday that 500 people had died inside a detention center in El Fasher, North Darfur State.
Survivors told Darfur24 that the Rapid Support Forces, after taking control of El Fasher in late October, transferred thousands of civilians who were trapped in Al Rashid dormitories and other scattered buildings in the First Class neighborhood to detention centers, including the Children’s Hospital in the east of the city.
One of the survivors, who spent three weeks inside the children’s hospital before being released in exchange for a ransom of 35 million Sudanese pounds, reported that during the first three days they faced extremely complex humanitarian conditions due to the lack of the most necessary necessities of life inside the detention center.
He pointed out that the detainees were forced to drink sewage water, in addition to some of them resorting to drinking urine due to the lack of water, which led to the death of dozens of them daily.
A health source among the survivors, who was released after two weeks, described the health conditions inside the children’s hospital as “catastrophic,” especially during the first week of detention, in an interview with Darfur24.
He explained that the detention center recorded about 50 deaths per day, most of them due to the lack of safe water, which in turn led to the spread of waterborne epidemics, most notably the cholera epidemic.
He confirmed that the total number of deaths during the two weeks reached 500 cases, most of them as a result of diseases, especially cholera.
Another health source stated that the actual number of deaths in the children’s hospital during the two weeks was much greater than 500 cases.
He pointed out that several elderly people had died inside the center due to chronic diseases, in addition to a lack of food and medicine.
The source warned of the worsening suffering of hundreds of detainees who are still trapped inside the children’s hospital, given the continued deterioration of their health conditions.
The Rapid Support Forces took control of El Fasher on October 26th.