Darfur’s last city falls amid fears of genocide : NPR

A displaced woman rests in Tawila, in the war-torn West Darfur region, on Tuesday, having fled El-Fasher following the town’s fall to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

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After a siege lasting more than 500 days, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – the paramilitary group at war with the Sudanese army – took control of El-Fasher and, by extension, the entire Darfur region. The city’s fall marks a turning point in Sudan’s brutal war and has sparked warnings of a repeat of the Darfur genocide two decades ago.

The United Nations estimates that around 200,000 civilians were trapped in El Fasher when the army withdrew. Advocacy groups say many people are now being systematically killed.

Among the dead was Muhammad Khamis Duda, spokesman for the Zamzam IDP camp near El Fasher, who documented the siege for months, sending voice messages to international media until his death. He survived an attack on the camp by the RSF in April, during which hundreds of people were massacred. But he still refused to leave, determined to stay and help others.

“The current situation in El-Fasher is very horrible,” Duda said in one of his last messages to NPR before his death.

RSF tightens its grip on Darfur

The RSF and allied Arab militias – descendants of the famous Janjaweed – now control all of Darfur, a vast western region already marked by decades of ethnic violence.

Videos circulating online, which NPR has not independently verified, appear to show RSF fighters killing hospital patients and civilians while shouting racist slurs.

Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair argues that the violence is not only a continuation of the civil war – but also genocide.

“The genocide that we witnessed twenty years ago continues,” she said.

Evidence of massacres from space

Satellite images reviewed by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab show mass graves and signs of house-to-house killings in El-Fasher.

Lab director Nathaniel Raymond says his team is tracking atrocities in real time.

“Every day, my team and I witness the destruction of El-Fasher from space. No one can say they didn’t know.”

The RSF has been accused of war crimes throughout Sudan’s two-year conflict and is believed to be supported by the United Arab Emirates – a key US ally – although the latter denies any involvement.

Emi Mahmoud, a Sudanese-American activist and strategic director of the Humanitarian Network for Displaced Persons, herself from Darfur, says the world’s inaction is catastrophic.

“This is our moment in Srebrenica. Just like the siege of Sarajevo, which took place in full view of the world, El-Fasher is being destroyed in front of everyone’s eyes. If no one intervenes, there will be no one left to save,” Mahmoud told NPR. Morning edition.

A humanitarian collapse occurs

The UN’s International Organization for Migration says more than 26,000 people have fled El-Fasher since the weekend fall. Many arrive in the neighboring village of Tawila., where mothers of infants, malnourished children and the elderly seek help.

Doctors Without Borders says it has treated hundreds of injured civilians, while aid workers face “extraordinary danger” to reach those in need.

In El Fasher, videos published by RSF show fighters carrying out executions, while advocacy groups warn of massacres across the city. The UN says 1,350 people were killed there even before the city fell earlier this month.

The World Health Organization says that more than 460 patients and their companions were killed at the Saudi maternity hospital in El-Fasher. The WHO said it was “dismayed” and reminded all parties that patients and health workers are protected by international law.

What comes next

The war over who controls this resource-rich country, located at the crossroads of the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, has killed tens of thousands of people. It also displaced 14 million people. Both sides of the conflict have been accused of committing atrocities.

With El-Fasher under RSF control, analysts warn that the group is now in a position to dominate a third of Sudan, strengthening its claims to power and deepening the country’s fragmentation.

The capture of El-Fasher will only give it more weight, believes Cameron Hudson, former special envoy to Sudan and analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“This RSF victory allows them to consolidate their total control over a third of the country, i.e. all of Darfur. This will strengthen their claims to be a government and give them more weight at the negotiating table.”

At the same time, the RSF appears determined to pursue a scorched earth policy in El-Fasher, with the true scale of the atrocities likely to become clear only in the coming weeks.