The United Nations is pushing to gain access to al-Fashir, the famine-stricken city in Darfur where witnesses have reported mass reprisals since a takeover by Sudan's Rapid Support Forces last month, U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher said. Fletcher told Reuters it would be a huge task to provide aid to the city, which would be treated as a "crime scene" for investigations following reports of systematic executions, detentions, and rapes.

Many of those thought to have remained in al-Fashir when the paramilitary RSF took control following a long siege are still unaccounted for. Safe passage was needed for humanitarians to enter the city and for survivors to leave, Fletcher said in an interview late on Tuesday from N'Djamena in Chad, following a visit to Darfur.

Fletcher said talks with the RSF w

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