The Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group engaged in fighting with the Sudanese military since April 2023, have encircled El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur in Sudan, in its latest advances amid Sudan's year-long civil war. The city is home to 1.8 million people and a critical hub for humanitarian aid in a region hurtling toward famine.
If it falls, which looks likely, the RSF will be able to make Darfur their home base to fight against the Sudanese military for years to come.
Over the last nine days, 200 football fields’ worth of civilian infrastructure were destroyed by the RSF burning villages to the ground and the Sudanese military indiscriminately bombing civilian areas.
Plenty of guns, but no food. Sudan is facing the world’s worst famine in 40 years, according to US officials. The country has been issued $2.7 billion in humanitarian aid, but less than a fifth of it has trickled in as both sides of the fighting block aid deliveries and use hunger as a weapon.
Meanwhile, weapons continue to flow. On Tuesday, the UN blamed the war’s continuation on arms shipments from external actors like the United Arab Emirates. According to the Sudanese military, the UAE sends weapons into the region several times a week.
“Never again.” When the RSF took control of the city of El Geneina last fall, 15,000 people were killed in days. The main targets of RSF violence are non-Arabs, just as they were when the Janjaweed carried out a genocidal campaign against them in the 2000s. El Fasher is on the precipice of another ethnic massacre, with the UN warning of genocide.
