Hundreds Killed as Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces Seize El-Fasher, Thousands Trapped Amid Atrocities in Darfur
Aid agencies and Sudanese officials say atrocities are mounting in the western city of El-Fasher after Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the city from the national army last week, raising fears for tens of thousands trapped inside.
According to the Norwegian Refugee Council and the U.N. migration agency (IOM), only a few thousand civilians have managed to flee to safety since the RSF took control, despite over 70,000 people being displaced. Fewer than 6,000 survivors have reached the nearest camp in Tawila, around 65 kilometers away, as gunfire and checkpoints along the route have made escape nearly impossible.
Shashwat Saraf, the NRC’s Sudan director, described the situation as “catastrophic,” saying that many displaced people arrive “disoriented, dehydrated, and injured.” Around 170 unaccompanied children, some as young as three, have been found wandering without family members.
Sudan’s Minister of Social Welfare, Salima Ishaq, told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency that RSF fighters killed at least 300 women in El-Fasher within the first two days of the city’s fall. She said many were subjected to sexual violence and torture, calling the route between El-Fasher and Tawila “a road of death.” The government has submitted documentation of these alleged war crimes to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed at least 460 deaths in local hospitals, while aid workers warn the real toll could be far higher.
At a press conference in Cairo, Sudan’s ambassador Imadeldin Mustafa Adawi accused the RSF of “war crimes and genocide” and urged the international community to designate the group a terrorist organization. He also reiterated Khartoum’s accusations that the United Arab Emirates has supplied arms to the RSF — a claim the UAE denies.
Speaking at the Manama Dialogue security summit in Bahrain, UAE diplomat Anwar Gargash declined to address the allegations directly but admitted that backing both RSF commander Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) and army chief Abdel-Fattah Burhan after their 2021 coup was a “critical mistake.”
The fall of El-Fasher — the last major army stronghold in Darfur — marks a turning point in Sudan’s 19-month civil war, which has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced over 14 million, according to U.N. estimates. Aid agencies fear the RSF’s victory in Darfur could embolden it to expand its campaign toward central Sudan, as attacks on displaced persons’ camps continue in Kordofan, where 12 civilians, including five children, were reported killed over the weekend.
