KUALA LUMPUR — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday of a "terrible escalation" of fighting in Sudan's famine-stricken city of El Fasher, where paramilitary Rapid Support Forces say they have seized full control.

 

Since April 2023, a war between the Sudanese army and the RSF has left tens of thousands of people dead, and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.

 

The RSF said Sunday it had seized full control of El-Fasher, the last major city in the vast western Darfur region not in its hands, in a potential turning point in the country's unrelenting civil war.

 

"This represents a terrible escalation in the conflict," Guterres said in answer to an AFP question, adding that "the level of suffering that we are witnessing in Sudan is unbearable".

 

Analysts have warned this could effectively partition Sudan, with the army holding the north, east and centre, and the RSF dominating Darfur and parts of the south.

 

But the conflict has also dragged in outside forces, the UN chief added, speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of regional summit in Malaysia.

 

"It's high time for the international community to tell clearly, to all countries that are interfering in this war, and that are providing weapons to the parties to the war, to stop doing that," he said.

 

"It is clear that... it is not only a Sudanese problem, with the army and Rapid Support Forces fighting each other," he added.

 

"We have more and more an external interference, that undermines the possibility to a ceasefire and to a political solution."

 

In 2003, dictator Omar al-Bashir unleashed the Janjaweed militias on non-Arab communities in Darfur.

 

An estimated 300,000 people were killed and close to 2.5 million people were displaced.

 

Key RSF leaders were members of the Janjaweed.