Fires used as a weapon devastated 72 villages and towns in western Sudan in April, the highest number seen in any month since the conflict began over a year ago, according to a report from a Center for Information Resilience published on Monday.

As Sudan Witness, a project run by the UK-based nonprofit Center for Information Resilience, reports, weaponized fires are increasingly prevalent in Sudan, especially in the west of the country. In April, a record number of fires damaged or destroyed 72 villages and towns in Sudan. Since the conflict began last year, a total of 201 settlements have been impacted in total. The fire most often affects residents of Darfur and Kordofan, leading to massive displacement. Some camps for internally displaced persons have also been burned, forcing people to flee twice. The location of the fires was determined using satellite imagery and open sources of information.

“When we see reports of fighting or airstrikes coinciding with clusters of fires it indicates that fire is being used indiscriminately as a weapon of war,” said project director Anouk Theunissen. “The trend is worsening and continues to lead to the mass displacement of Sudanese people.”

In April 2023, the internal armed conflict erupted between the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group (RSF) and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) due to a collapsed political agreement. Homes, cities, and infrastructure have been destroyed by the ongoing war and violence over the past year.

Since the outbreak of war, Sudan has also been in one of the world’s largest displacement crisis and is on the brink of famine. The conflict is severely affecting the ability of civilians to cope with the consequences of the war, and is also hampering humanitarian workers’ access to vulnerable populations. Attacks on telecommunication infrastructure and bureaucratic restrictions make it difficult for humanitarian organizations to communicate with the population and receive funding. Telecommunication outages and gaps in connectivity negatively impact access to the Internet, which is essential for information sharing, access to funds, and coordination of aid.

According to data from the International Organization for Migration in January, approximately 10.7 million individuals have been displaced by conflicts in Sudan, with nine million of them still residing within the country.