RSF Seizes El-Fasher as Darfur’s Last Army Stronghold Amid Genocide Fears and Mass Displacement
Paramilitaries capture city, sparking ethnic violence warnings.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured El-Fasher, Darfur's final army stronghold, after an 18-month siege involving starvation tactics and relentless bombardment, raising alarms of widespread ethnic massacres comparable to the 2000s genocide perpetrated by their Janjaweed predecessors. The paramilitary group, engaged in conflict with Sudan's army since April 2023, overran remaining military positions, leaving the historic city—once capital of the Darfur Sultanate—with destroyed vehicles, scattered bodies, and neighborhoods enveloped in smoke.
In North Kordofan, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported the killing of five Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers in Bara following RSF control on Saturday, with three additional volunteers unaccounted for. Analysts indicate Sudan is now divided along an east-west line, with the RSF administering a parallel authority across Darfur and the army maintaining control over Nile Valley, Red Sea, northern, eastern, and central regions.
RSF fighters have disseminated videos depicting civilian executions and abuses since the city's fall on Sunday, which the army-aligned foreign ministry condemned as crimes "shamelessly documented by the perpetrators." An RSF-led coalition announced formation of a committee to authenticate footage, asserting many clips are army fabrications. The United Nations highlighted "ethnically motivated violations and atrocities," the African Union denounced "escalating violence" and "alleged war crimes," and pro-democracy organizations reported over 2,000 civilian deaths amid "the worst violence and ethnic cleansing" since the takeover.
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More than 26,000 residents fled El-Fasher within 48 hours, primarily on foot toward Tawila 70 kilometers west, while approximately 177,000 remain confined by a 56-kilometer RSF earthen berm obstructing food, medicine, and evacuation routes. Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab documented door-to-door killings, mass graves, blood pools, and corpse-filled trenches via satellite imagery, corroborated by eyewitness accounts of executions at Saudi Hospital. Executive Director Nathaniel Raymond described the violence as approaching "Rwanda-level mass extermination," referencing the 1994 genocide that claimed 800,000 lives.
Prospects for peace appear remote, according to Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair, as neither the army nor RSF demonstrates willingness for ceasefire or substantive negotiations due to battlefield imperatives. The war has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, displaced millions—constituting the world's largest displacement crisis—and precipitated severe famine, with both parties accused of systematic atrocities across the fractured nation.
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