El Fasher , June 3(Darfur 24)
Dozens of detainees in the prisons of the Rapid Support Forces RSF in the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, face an unknown fate as military clashes and mutual bombing between the parties to the conflict continue in the city .
Since May 10, there have been continuous battles between the army and its allied movements and the Rapid Support Forces and the militias supporting them in El Fasher, leaving more than a thousand civilians dead and wounded.
Following the outbreak of war on April 15, 2023, El Fasher witnessed the arrest of hundreds by the Rapid Support Forces on grounds of intelligence with the army. Some of them were released in exchange for a financial ransom, while others remained in prisons until the situation exploded in the city in May.
Ibrahim Youssef, 35 years old, a former detainee in the vicinity of the Al-Jabal neighborhood and among the detainees who were liberated in the ongoing battles, said that the Rapid Support has at least three prisons in eastern El-Fasher.
He indicated, in a statement to “Darfur 24”, that only the detainees in the vicinity of the Al-Jabal neighborhood, including himself, were released, while the rest of the detainees in other prisons have an unknown fate.
He talked about the death of detainees in the prisons of the Rapid Support Forces in El Fasher under torture and hunger.
In this context, a former detainee in the Rapid Support prisons from the Riyadh neighborhood, north of El Fasher, said. He preferred not to mention his name. He told “Darfur 24” that he was receiving treatment at the Southern Hospital, where his family saved him from certain death after he was found among the corpses while he was in his last breath, before he was transferred to the hospital in late April of this year, a month after his arrest. From Abuja camp.
The former detainee reported that dozens died in RSF prisons either due to hunger or disease, and dozens more were likely to have died during the recent air strikes launched by the Sudanese Air Force on RSF gatherings in El Fasher.
The advisor to the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Youssef Ezzat, denied in press statements last October that he was not aware of the Rapid Support prisons east of El Fasher, and at the time accused the remnants of the former regime of defaming the former.