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FILE PHOTO: Sudanese refugees who fled the violence in Sudan's Darfur region and newly arrived ride their donkeys looking for space to temporarily settle, near the border between Sudan and Chad in Goungour, Chad May 8, 2023.
Fears of mass killings rise in Darfur
Genocide once again threatens to devastate Darfur as the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces encircle El Fasher, the last city in North Darfur not under the paramilitary group’s control.
The United Nations warned this weekend of imminent attacks on El Fasher’s 800,000 residents and hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by Sudan's year-long civil war, a situation that human rights investigators describe as having the potential for“Hiroshima- and Nagasaki-level casualties.”
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterressaid, “The world must act swiftly to prevent a potential genocide in the region.”
Eight and a half million Sudanese have been displaced since conflict broke out in April 2023, with 25 million at risk of famine nationwide. The RSF has been accused of massacres and mass rapes, most notably in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina, where 10,000-14,000 people were killed inethnically targeted attacks last year against Black African Masalit and other non-Arab civilians.
Now, echoes of Darfur’s2003 famine, which stemmed from the same ethnic conflicts, have resurfaced – but with competing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, aid workers fear the world once again will not pay attention until it is too late.Women from the city of Al-Junina (West Darfur) cry after receiving the news about the death of their relatives as they waited for them in Chad, November 7, 2023.
Sudan’s civil war rages through Darfur
Sudan’s civil war reached a grim turning point this week as Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries solidified their control over the Darfur region in Western Sudan. The RSF has been accused of war crimes there as part of its conflict with the Sudanese government.
The background: Back in 2019, the Sudanese military and the RSF cooperated to topple long-serving dictator Omar Bashir, but they fell out over how to work together thereafter. In April of this year, clashes between them erupted into a full-blown war that has left thousands dead and driven more than 5.7 million people from their homes. More than a million have fled to neighboring Chad, one of Africa’s poorest countries.
In Darfur specifically, the RSF and allied Arab militias have been accused in recent months of targeted massacres of the Masalit, a local Black African ethnic group that is a minority within the wider Arab-dominated Sudanese state. RSF fighters have also been accused of systematically abducting and raping women and girls in Darfur.
Flashback: Twenty years ago, Darfur was the scene of gruesome atrocities in which the Sudanese government and local Arab militias (including the fearsome janjaweed horsemen) slaughtered more than 170,000 Masalit in response to a rebellion against the central government. The US government labeled that campaign a “genocide” in 2004.
Peace talks have failed. There are various cross-cutting initiatives led by the African Union, Egypt, the US and Saudi Arabia, and South Sudan. Several ceasefires have fallen apart already. Meanwhile, Sudan’s civilians continue to pay the price.
The UN warned on Tuesday that the deepening war had “turned homes into cemeteries.”