“It never gets easier to watch people die from space,” says a weary Nathaniel Raymond.
The veteran human rights investigator is monitoring the enciriclement of the Sudanese city of El Fasher in almost-real-time, via high-resolution satellite images.
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A resident of a camp in El Fasher named Tagaldeen told a news briefing on Thursday that the city faces a drinking water shortage in the next few days, due to a lack of fuel for generators.
“There are many families here who rely on only one meal a day. The RSF surrounding El Fasher threatens the citizens with death – by hunger and thirst,” said Tagaldeen.
“We ask the international community to intervene urgently to save the citizens in Darfur, and in El Fasher especially.”
This week the U.N. and the United States highlighted concerns about the situation in El Fasher.
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U.N. officials warned the U.N. Security Council last week that around 800,000 people in El Fasher were in “extreme and immediate danger.”
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The U.N. and African Union established a peacekeeping presence in the region in 2007 until its mandate ended in 2020.
Raymond says ending that mission has contributed to what is now playing out in Darfur.
“Darfur is about to succumb to the RSF. And there’s no chant, there’s no wristband, there’s no celebrity on the Today Show. There’s just the human reality of what’s about to occur, and it is occurring in darkness and in silence,” said Raymond.