Arrr! 72 villages be ablaze in Sudan, fire be a weapon of war, scallywags be burnin' everything in sight!
2024-05-13
Arrr mateys, in this bloody conflict in Sudan, the scallywags be usin' fire to raze villages and scatter the landlubbers more than ever before. April '24 be the month where more blazes be sparkin' than any other in this rum-soaked war. Aye, it be a fiery spectacle indeed!
In the month of April, fires caused by the ongoing conflict in Sudan ravaged 72 villages and settlements, marking the most widespread destruction from fires since the war began in mid-April 2023. The total number of fires in Sudan now stands at 201, as reported by investigators from Sudan Witness, a project by the Center for Information Resilience. The use of fire as a weapon of war in Sudan has been a common tactic, particularly by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Darfur.Recent fighting in the capital city of North Darfur state, el-Fasher, resulted in the deaths of 27 people and injuries to dozens more. The conflict escalated when Sudan's military launched an airstrike near a pediatric hospital, killing two children and a caregiver. The Center for Information Resilience noted a significant increase in fires in the north and west of el-Fasher, with an estimated 31 settlements affected in April alone.According to Anouk Theunissen, director of Sudan Witness, the indiscriminate use of fire as a weapon of war is exacerbating the mass displacement of Sudanese people. The conflict, which began in Khartoum last year, has spread to other regions of Sudan, including Darfur, where many settlements for displaced people have been repeatedly targeted by fires. The analysis conducted by the project relied on social media, satellite imagery, and NASA's fire monitoring data to track the patterns of fires across the war-torn country.