The BBC hears about the fear and hunger in the massacre town of El Geneina

No one lives on the outskirts of El Geneina anymore.

But its empty buildings still stand to tell their haunting stories, loud and clear.

Burnt houses and shops are riddled with bullet holes. The doors are broken. Metal shutters are smashed. Rusted Sudanese army tanks litter the streets. You can still smell the fire that burned here last year.

“It was very difficult to drive through these ruins and smoke-filled cities,” said new UN aid chief Tom Fletcher, whose visit to the capital of West Darfur was the first time a senior UN official had been able to visit the area. since the war in Sudan broke out 19 months ago.

“Darfur has seen the worst,” is how Fletcher, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Situations Coordinator, described its tragedy.

“It’s facing this security crisis, including the epidemic of sexual violence, and hunger.”

His short but important visit came after long talks with two rival Sudanese forces – those led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), who heads the UN-recognised government, and the military. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, now controls most of Darfur.

UN officials refer to the RSF as “those in charge of the area”.

It was RSF fighters, along with Arab coalition forces, that ran into El Geneina last year, mainly targeting civilians from the non-Arab Musalit community in what human rights groups, including UN experts, described as ethnic cleansing and possible war crimes and crimes. directed at humanity. Human Rights Watch concluded that it may have been a massacre.

The Sudanese army has also come under heavy criticism. Arab civilians are also reported to have perished in the chaos, many killed by army tank bombs, or in airstrikes.

Both the RSF and the SAF deny allegations of war crimes and point fingers at their rivals.

Few journalists have come to El Geneina to witness its suffering, including the aftermath of two massacres in the space of a few months last year, which the UN says killed about 15,000 people.

The chaos of violence, rape and looting is considered to be one of the worst atrocities in Sudan since the brutal fire broke out, which has created the worst humanitarian situation in the world.

We set out from the Chadian border town of Adre with the UN team, less than an hour’s drive on a dust-covered dirt road, through a barren desert plain dotted with half-built or disused mud-brick buildings.

A small number of mobile trucks packed with the aid of the UN’s World Food Programme, as well as the more common Sudanese carts driven by horses or donkeys, move back and forth across the border marked by a few poles and ropes.

But on the other side of the border, across the no man’s land in the arid desert and down our dark road, rifle-toting RSF soldiers in camouflage uniforms patrol this part of Sudan. Some are just shy little boys.

But, before we left Adre, knowing how difficult it might be to gather evidence inside, we spent time in an informal camp full of UN and Chadian authorities near the border. A large crowd, mostly women of all ages, some with children, filled the large field. Temporal resolution of surprising proportions.

Everyone we talked to was from El Geneina. And they all left with their own stories as they escaped the severe famine and horror that descended upon their homes.

“When we fled, our young brothers were killed,” gushed a confident 14-year-old Sudanese girl wearing a pink scarf, who spoke calmly and quietly during the terrifying moments.

“Some were still breastfeeding, too young to walk. Our elders who escaped with us were also killed.”

I asked him how he managed to survive.

“We had to hide during the day and continue our journey at midnight. If you walk during the day, they will kill you. But even walking at night is still very dangerous.”

In the end, his family made the difficult decision to leave his country. His mother was with him but he did not know where his father was.

“Children were separated from their fathers and husbands,” shouted an old woman with black eyes burning with anger.

“They kill everyone indiscriminately – women, boys, children, everyone.”

“We used to get food from our farms,” ​​said one woman when their stories unfolded.

But when the war started, we couldn’t farm and the animals ate our crops, so we were left with nothing. “

In El Geneina, our first stop is a modest health center in the Al-Riyadh refugee camp, where Sudanese women in brightly colored veils sit on chairs along the wall, or engage in sex on the bamboo floor.

A group of mostly elderly men, some with walking sticks, sat near the front under the shade of a tin roof and large-branched trees lining the open wall.

Sounds like a different El Geneina. There was no visible presence of armed RSF men in the leafy area dotted with low-rise mud houses. Little boys turn the wheels of carts, women in transparent veils go tiptoe, and donkey carts carrying water barrels move along the dirt roads.

“We have suffered a lot,” emphasized a community elder, a white-hatted teacher who was the first to speak to the visiting UN delegation wearing blue vests. He speaks accurately and carefully.

“It is true that when the war started, there were people who supported the SAF, while others supported the RSF. But as displaced people we are not neutral and we need all kinds of help.”

The camp was first established in 2003, a reminder that the tragedy in Darfur erupted two decades ago when popular Arab militias known as the Janjaweed sowed fear among non-Arab communities and were accused of numerous war crimes. Cause RSF.

The teacher cataloged basic needs – from food for malnourished women and children, to schools and clean water. He also explained that most of the women are now in charge of their families.

Some of the girls, visible only to the eyes, are filming the meeting with their phones, perhaps looking for some record of this rare meeting.

Fletcher spoke directly to them.

“You must feel that no one listens to you and no one understands what you have endured, more than anyone else in society, and perhaps more than anyone else in the world.” He answered and applauded.

The next stop at the UN, behind closed doors, is even more direct when Fletcher and his colleagues sit before a gathering of Sudanese and international NGOs based in Darfur struggling to respond to this massive crisis.

Unlike the UN, they are not waiting for permission from General Burhan’s government to work here; the authorization of UN international workers to stay here was recently revoked.

Twenty NGOs, operating without reliable internet or electricity or telephones, and struggling to obtain Sudanese visas for workers, say they are trying to help 99.9% of the people in need. Their message was clear – the UN system was failing them.

“A lot needs to be done,” said Tariq Riebl, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Sudan operations, after the meeting. But he says the most frightening thing is “that no one cares, that they only care about other problems like Ukraine and Gaza.”

“This is one of the worst conflicts we have seen in recent times, in terms of violence, people fleeing,” he emphasized.

“And there are very few real famines, but this one.”

So far, the World Hunger Review Committee (FRC) has declared it in one part of the Zamzam displacement camp which is home to half a million people in North Darfur; more than ten other areas are said to be on the brink.

“The UN cannot simply charge the border wherever we want to go,” Fletcher stressed.

“But this week we have more flights arriving at regional airports, more open areas inside Sudan, and we’re getting more people on the ground.”

During his week-long visit to Sudan and its neighbors, he met with representatives of the SAF and RSF to push for more access to lines and borders.

He started his new job vowing to “end impunity and indifference”.

“It would be rash to say that I can end impunity on my own,” he said, referring to the conflict in which rival regional governments have been arming and aiding warring groups.

The United Arab Emirates is suspected of supporting the RSF, while countries including Egypt, Iran, and Russia are known to support the SAF. Others are surviving, including Saudi Arabia and regional organizations including the Arab Union, with all sides saying they are working for peace, not war.

Speaking of negativity, after Fletcher’s first visit many Sudanese aid workers will be watching closely, hoping he can make a difference in the “world’s most difficult crisis”.