Sudan’s Forgotten Catastrophe Reignites as El Fasher Falls to RSF Forces

After more than 500 days under siege, El Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur, has fallen. Just last month, the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of El Fasher from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Tens of thousands of civilians endure starvation and sexual violence, with reports of mass executions emerging from the city. 

With the capture of El Fasher, the RSF now controls one-third of the country.

Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab describes the level of violence as comparable to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide. In a recent report, they stated that El Fasher “appears to be in a systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing of Fur, Zaghawa, and Berti Indigenous non-Arab communities through forced displacement and summary execution.” Additionally, satellite imagery shows RSF forces going door to door, committing acts of violence. The images show scenes consistent with human corpses, along with what are presumed to be blood-stained streets and fields.

Sudan’s civil war began in April 2023 between the SAF and the RSF following years of tensions after the 2019 ousting of President Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power for almost three decades. The army had seized power following large civilian demonstrations, and a new government was introduced, only to be overthrown in 2021 by the two men central to today’s conflict: the head of the SAF and de facto leader of Sudan, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the head of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Their uneasy alliance fell apart over disagreements on the integration of RSF forces, a development that the SAF saw as a threat. 

The RSF’s brutality is not new. In 2013, the RSF was formed by former President Omar al-Bashir to suppress a rebellion in the Darfur region. The initial majority of these RSF fighters were from the Janjaweed militia, who, alongside government forces in Sudan, were responsible for committing genocide against non-Arab populations, killing around 300,000 people in the early 2000s.

This is a war over control, and both the SAF and RSF stand accused of committing atrocities. Over 150,000 people have been killed since the war began, more than 14 million have been displaced, and more than 30 million are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Neither the SAF nor the RSF would be able to continue this war without the backing of international actors on each side. The SAF is supported by Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and Iran, among other nations, while the primary supplier of weapons and fuel to the RSF is the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is also Sudan’s largest importer of gold. Sudan’s gold resources lie in areas mainly under the control of the RSF. Despite repeated denials of their involvement, the UN and other human rights organizations have found evidence of the RSF use of military supplies from the UAE. These arms are smuggled across the border from Libya and Chad, as well as through Uganda. 

What is happening in El Fasher is a chilling echo of Darfur two decades ago. The atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s shocked the world, but the global reaction to today’s developments in Sudan is not getting anywhere near the level of attention that other major global crises are receiving despite the shocking news, images, and testimony continuously coming out of this country. The atrocities being committed in Sudan are being met with indifference. 

Recent diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have largely failed. The Quad Initiative, comprised of the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, recently coordinated a roadmap to ending the war, but few believe that it will hold. There are also doubts that an impartial peace process is possible when individual members of the Quad have their own stake in this conflict. 

The fall of El Fasher should be a global alarm bell. It marks not only another victory for a militia with a genocidal past but also another failure of international will. What the civil war in Sudan has shown, heightened by the recent seizure of El Fasher, is not just the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, but the indisputable display of mass atrocity.