STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A famine in Sudan has spread.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
That is according to an organization that monitors hunger around the world. The famine is one effect of a war. In recent days, an armed group that's battling the government captured a city called El Fasher in the Darfur region. The Rapid Support Forces, as they are called, allegedly moved into the city, killed many people and put the rest in danger.
INSKEEP: 91ÖÆƬ³§'s Emmanuel Akinwotu has been covering this story. Emmanuel, welcome back.
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: OK. First, what does the finding by this outside group suggest about the scale of the suffering here?
AKINWOTU: Well, what we know is that about 375,000 more people are suffering famine, and many of those people are in Darfur. And that's the area controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, or the RSF. That's the group at war with the government. And they include people in El Fasher, the city Michel mentioned. And the catastrophic situation there really isn't a surprise. It was under siege by the RSF for a year and a half, and about 250,000 people living there were almost completely cut off from food and medical supplies. And community kitchens that were really a lifeline, providing food funded by donations - they were bombed. People have been forced to eat animal feed, even hides.
INSKEEP: Wow. So what more can you say, then, about these hundreds of thousands of people with very little to eat?
AKINWOTU: Well, there's been a communications blackout, so it's very difficult to get a detailed picture of events. But information that has trickled out is really shocking. Only about 70,000 people have fled, according to the U.N., and less than 10,000 of them are actually accounted for. Most of those who've managed to escape have fled to a remote mountainous town about 25 miles away called Tahila. The majority of them are women. And organizations that have been supporting them - they say several have witnessed their children, their husbands, members of their family gunned down and tortured. There are reports of people being asked what ethnic group they are and then killed, and descriptions of hundreds of people at a time - mostly men - rounded up and executed.
INSKEEP: OK. So the people accused of doing all of this - the actors, the group that took over the city, the Rapid Support Forces - they're this group that was under the auspices of the government, then turned against the government. They're allegedly supported by the United Arab Emirates, which is a big foreign policy player throughout the region. What are they saying about these accusations against them?
AKINWOTU: Well, firstly, the RSF - they've denied targeting civilians. But what we've repeatedly seen during the war is that these abuses and atrocities really are systemic and are part and parcel of how they've operated. The U.N. says they're committing a genocide in Darfur - again - against African ethnic groups, and that's 20 years after the first Darfur genocide. And really, this wave of violence is an extension of that. And then, as you've mentioned, there's the UAE. And they're a close ally of the U.S. who are facing growing attention for their role in this war. A few days ago, Anwar Gargash, a senior Emirati official - he commented on the situation in El Fasher.
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ANWAR GARGASH: Right now, as we condemn the atrocities in El Fasher - and they deserve condemnation, and they deserve also for us to condemn every other, also, atrocity in Sudan.
AKINWOTU: And really, he spoke about it in humanitarian terms, talking about the need for more aid and the need for a ceasefire. But he didn't address widespread allegations that the UAE are arming the RSF.
INSKEEP: I'm just thinking about everything you've told me here, Emmanuel, and a phrase that is sticking with me is genocide again. We're talking about a region that has already suffered genocide, and it's suffering it again.
AKINWOTU: Exactly. And, you know, many of the people in Darfur would say the violence really has been continuing in the interim, but it's exploded during the civil war. And it's an incredibly bleak situation there.
INSKEEP: 91ÖÆƬ³§'s Emmanuel Akinwotu, thanks so much.
AKINWOTU: Thanks, Steve. Transcript provided by 91ÖÆƬ³§, Copyright 91ÖÆƬ³§.
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