AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
In Sudan, a paramilitary group at war with the army is on the verge of gaining control of a historic major city. El Fasher in the western region of Darfur has been under a deadly siege for over a year. Hundreds of thousands have fled attacks on the city, which is largely blockaded by fighters, and there have been reports of starvation. NPR's international correspondent Emmanuel Akinwotu joins us now. Welcome to the show.
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: Hi. Good morning.
RASCOE: So what's the latest on the most recent attack?
AKINWOTU: Well, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF - they've been launching these relentless attacks against army forces and the entire civilian population there, really. And on Friday, they launched a missile at a mosque in El Fasher during early morning prayers. At least 85 people were killed. And a resident in El Fasher, Dr. Salwa Mukhtar - she sent me videos from the aftermath of the attack, where her uncle was killed.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Arabic).
AKINWOTU: And in the footage, it shows a survivor walking over the rubble, the mosque destroyed, with dismembered bodies just scattered across the ground. Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab have done analysis of satellite imagery. And they say key positions held by forces aligned with the army, who've been defending the city, have now been taken over. El Fasher's the last city that the RSF don't yet control in Darfur, which is their main stronghold in Sudan, that they've been forced into because most of the rest of the country is now controlled by the army. And this situation is grave because what we've seen in Darfur is that when the RSF and allied Arab militias - when they take over areas there, it's usually followed by ethnic cleansing and mass killings against African ethnic groups.
RASCOE: The United Nations and aid groups say Sudan is the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Will it be on the agenda at the U.N. General Assembly this month?
AKINWOTU: Well, it will be discussed, but there's not much indication so far that it's going to get the critical level of attention that it needs. I spoke to Cameron Hudson. He's an analyst and fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and he put it this way.
CAMERON HUDSON: We have seen the slow starvation and strangulation of a population with virtually no international response. So the fact that leaders are once again gathering in New York and the current siege of El Fasher is going to go unremarked upon, I think, is a - an indication of just how feckless and ineffective the international community and the institution of the United Nations has become.
AKINWOTU: This weekend, the secretary general, Antonio Guterres - he called the situation in El Fasher a grave concern. So we'll see what follows this week.
RASCOE: Is the Trump administration doing anything to help end the conflict?
AKINWOTU: Well, they've had pretty much little to no engagement with both sides of the war. And that's the army-led administration, which is largely regarded as the de facto government, and the RSF, which have now established their own parallel government in Darfur. Here's Cameron Hudson again.
HUDSON: With respect to the U.S. approach, we have to say that it is not about managing the war or bringing about an end to the war. It's about managing the regional competition around the war.
AKINWOTU: And that applies in particular to a U.S. ally in the United Arab Emirates, who have been widely reported by the U.N. and several rights groups and international media to be funding and heavily supplying the RSF, although they deny this. So really, until that pressure on U.S. allies happens, it's hard to see how anything's going to change.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu. Thank you so much for joining us.
AKINWOTU: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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