In the arid heart of Sudan’s Darfur region, the city of El Fasher has become the latest epicenter of a humanitarian disaster as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control in late October 2025. After a brutal 17-month siege that left the city isolated and starving, the RSF’s victory has unleashed a torrent of violence, mass displacement, and allegations of war crimes that have shocked the international community and left aid agencies scrambling to respond.
Witnesses and survivors recount a harrowing ordeal. As the RSF swept through El Fasher, home to more than a million civilians—many already displaced by previous fighting—reports emerged of massacres, summary executions, and widespread sexual violence. According to the United Nations Human Rights Office, “widespread and serious human rights violations” have been documented, including “credible reports of mass killings in various locations and summary executions during house-to-house searches and as civilians have tried to flee the city.”
The city’s fall marks a pivotal moment in Sudan’s ongoing civil war, which erupted in April 2023 as the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) vied for control of the country. The conflict has claimed over 150,000 lives and displaced nearly a quarter of Sudan’s 50 million people, making it what the UN now calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. El Fasher, the last SAF stronghold in Darfur, had been under siege since April 2024, with residents enduring relentless shelling, hunger, and deprivation as escape routes were cut off and humanitarian aid blocked.
The aftermath of the RSF’s assault has been devastating. The Sudan Doctors Network reported that at least 1,500 civilians were killed in the first days after the siege ended, many as they attempted to escape. Satellite imagery analyzed by the Yale University Humanitarian Research Lab corroborated accounts of executions and mass killings at key sites, including the city’s Saudi Hospital and a former children’s hospital repurposed as an RSF detention center. Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization, described how gunmen abducted doctors and nurses from the Saudi Hospital before returning to kill at least 460 people—including medical staff and patients—in several waves of attacks. Six medical staff are still being held by the RSF, according to WHO.
Survivors’ testimonies paint a chilling picture of the violence. One man, Tajal-Rahman, told the Associated Press, “It was like a killing field. Bodies everywhere and people bleeding and no one to help them.” Another survivor, Alkheir Ismail, recounted to Reuters how he narrowly escaped execution after being recognized by one of his captors: “He told them, ‘Don’t kill him.’ Even after they killed everyone else—my friends and everyone else.”
Sexual violence has also been rampant. The UN Human Rights Office reported that at least 25 women were gang-raped at gunpoint when RSF forces entered a shelter for displaced people near El Fasher University. Witnesses said RSF personnel “selected women and girls and raped them at gunpoint,” forcing the remaining displaced persons—about 100 families—to flee under threat of violence.
The humanitarian impact has been staggering. More than 60,000 people fled El Fasher in the days following its capture, but only about 5,000 managed to reach the nearby town of Tawila, some 30 miles away through unforgiving desert terrain. Many others remain missing, feared dead or trapped amid ongoing violence. Aid agencies such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) report that most arrivals in Tawila are women, children, and the elderly, many suffering from catastrophic levels of malnutrition. “The arrival numbers don’t add up, while accounts of large-scale atrocities are mounting,” said Michel Olivier Lacharité, MSF’s head of emergencies. “Where are all the missing people who have already survived months of famine and violence in El Fasher?”
The journey to safety is perilous. Displaced families describe walking for days—sometimes up to four—through the desert, hiding during the day to avoid armed groups and traveling at night. “We were divided into groups and beaten,” one man told the BBC. “We saw people murdered in front of us. We saw people being beaten. I myself was hit on the head, back and legs. They wanted to execute us completely. But when the opportunity arose, we ran, while others in front were detained.”
In Tawila and other towns receiving the displaced, local hospitals and aid centers are overwhelmed. Relief International’s country director, Kashif Shafique, told Arab News, “Right now, many people are arriving to locations like Tawila, Al-Malha, Melit and Kosti with no possessions and in desperate need of humanitarian support. Terrifyingly, hundreds of thousands are still missing and unaccounted for.”
Even before the latest violence, Sudan was teetering on the brink of catastrophe. The Famine Review Committee confirmed famine in Darfur in August 2024, with the UN estimating that over half of Sudan’s population—about 25 million people—now require humanitarian assistance. The World Food Program says 24.6 million people are acutely food insecure, while 637,000 face catastrophic hunger. Relief International’s Dr. Zahra, working in Tawila, described the situation as dire: “People here are starving and dying from preventable diseases. Every day, children who arrive at our clinics could survive, if only the right treatment and nutrition was available.”
The violence in El Fasher is part of a broader pattern of atrocities that has marked the RSF’s campaign across Darfur. The group, formed in 2013 by former dictator Omar al-Bashir from the notorious Janjaweed militias, has long been accused of targeting non-Arab communities with massacres, sexual violence, and forced displacement. The Yale University Humanitarian Research Lab concluded that “El-Fasher appears to be in a systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing of Fur, Zaghawa and Berti indigenous non-Arab communities through forced displacement and summary execution.”
As the crisis deepens, international condemnation has grown louder. U.S. lawmakers from both parties have called on President Donald Trump to designate the RSF a terrorist organization, citing evidence of genocide and ethnic cleansing. “The horrors in Darfur’s El-Fasher were no accident—they were the RSF’s plan all along,” wrote Senator Jim Risch on X, joining colleagues in urging a strong response. Some lawmakers have also criticized the United Arab Emirates, which the Sudanese forces accuse of supporting the RSF, though the UAE denies any involvement.
On the ground, humanitarian workers face mounting dangers. Medical facilities have been ransacked, staff killed, and aid convoys blocked. Javid Abdelmoneim, president of MSF, warned, “Given the history of ethnically targeted violence in El-Fasher, we are deeply concerned about the risk of a potential bloodbath.” The UN’s Assistant Secretary General for Africa, Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, told the Security Council that “the risk of mass atrocities, ethnically targeted violence and further violations of international humanitarian law, including sexual violence, remains alarmingly high.”
Despite promises from RSF leaders to investigate abuses and punish perpetrators, many observers remain skeptical. As Shahd Hammou of the Center for Civilians in Conflict told Arab News, “With both Darfur and Kordofan destabilizing, civilians face an impossible choice; stay under fire or flee into the unknown.”
For now, the fate of El Fasher’s missing—hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children—remains uncertain. As aid agencies and survivors continue to sound the alarm, the world watches, hoping that Sudan’s darkest chapter does not become its deadliest.
