SUDAN WATCH

Thursday, October 30, 2025

Sudan siege ends in bloodbath despite pleas for mercy. Evidence emerges of atrocities committed by paramilitary RSF after it seized control of El Fasher

Report from The Financial Times
By William Wallis in Cairo
Published Wednesday 29 October 2025 - full copy:

Sudan siege ends in bloodbath despite pleas for mercy

Evidence emerges of atrocities committed by the paramilitary RSF after it seized control of El Fasher

A camp for displaced families who fled from El Fasher to Tawila in North Darfur © Mohammed Jamal/Reuters

The fall of the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher has turned into a bloodbath that rights activists and experts have foretold for months, according to local and international organisations monitoring the war.

Since Sunday — when militia fighters of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) over-ran the military garrison in the city, the last stronghold of the Sudan Armed Forces in the west of the country — evidence has emerged of many atrocities against civilians trapped or trying to flee.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was receiving multiple, alarming reports, including of summary executions committed by the RSF, since the group seized most of El Fasher in the western region of Darfur. The RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, is vying for control of all of Sudan.

“Multiple distressing videos received by UN Human Rights show dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters,” the UN said.

Jim Risch, Republican chair of the US Senate foreign relations committee, said on X that the RSF should be designated a foreign terrorist organisation.

“The horrors in Darfur’s El Fasher were no accident — they were the RSF’s plan all along,” he said. “The RSF has waged terror and committed unspeakable atrocities, genocide among them, against the Sudanese people . . . America is not safer, secure or more prosperous with the RSF slaughtering thousands.”

The RSF’s capture of El Fasher has potentially far-reaching consequences for Sudan and its two-year civil war.

The conflict has displaced more than 14mn people, according to the UN, provoked famine and claimed more than 150,000 lives.

Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, is head of the RSF

El Fasher is the largest city in western Sudan and sits at a crossroads of trade routes, giving the RSF greater control of the flow of weapons and supplies into the region through Libya and Chad.

The end of the siege, and the flight of the SAF and allied former rebels on Sunday, potentially frees up RSF militants to take the fight back to areas of the east and centre of Sudan from which they were driven earlier this year.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s military leader and Hemedti’s rival, on Monday said the army had withdrawn as a result of the “systematic destruction they endured” in the city.

The killings that have ensued, despite repeated warnings based on previous massacres committed by the RSF, marks a new low for decades-long international efforts to protect civilians from war crimes.

In videos posted online in the past two days, fighters from the RSF, which grew out of the Janjaweed militia that wreaked havoc on Darfur’s Black tribes in the early part of the century, shout racial slurs and revel in pursuing rake-thin men, women and children fleeing across the scrub outside the city.

Satellite image shows objects on the ground near what are likely to be RSF vehicles in El Fasher on Monday © AP

Dozens of captured men, bound and lying in rows along the ground, are denigrated and then executed in footage allegedly posted from RSF accounts.

Among those captured was Muammar Ibrahim, a freelance journalist who has chronicled the fate of civilians trapped in the city during a nearly 19-month siege. Inhabitants depended on dwindling supplies of animal feed and were under constant drone and artillery bombardment.

Many advocacy groups have been demanding the release of the Al Jazeera contributor.

Among those killed on Sunday, according to Sudanese activists in touch with the city and surrounding camps for the displaced, was Siham Hassan, a prominent campaigner for social justice. She was once Sudan’s youngest MP and was running a community kitchen.

Nathaniel Redmond, director of the Yale school of public health, said on Tuesday that the “horror, scale and velocity of killing” in El Fasher had left pools of blood visible from satellites.

Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab — which has been tracking the siege using satellite imagery, open-source online information and testimony from eyewitnesses — said it had found “multiple credible reports of mass killings across social media and open sources” in recent days.

Satellite imagery showing bodies on the ground and “vehicles in tactical formations consistent with house-to-house clearance operations” in a neighbourhood with thousands of civilians also supported allegations that the RSF had carried out mass killings, Yale’s HRL said.

“The world must act immediately to put the maximum amount of pressure on the RSF and its backers, specifically the [United Arab Emirates], to end the killing now,” it said, adding that the RSF’s actions “may be consistent with war crimes and crimes against humanity and may rise to the level of genocide”.

Sudanese refugees from Zamzam camp outside El Fasher receive food at an emergency kitchen while being relocated to a transit camp near the Chad border in Tine, eastern Chad, in May © Getty Images

“The nations of the world might be able to say that they could not have stopped it, but they cannot reasonably say that they did not know,” Yale’s HRL said.

The RSF said it was committed to “protecting civilians in El Fasher”, and had deployed specialised teams to clear landmines and “secure the streets and public spaces”.

It described the “liberation” of El Fasher as “a milestone in the Sudanese people’s struggle against oppression and terrorism”.

The parallel government launched under Hemedti in Darfur said it condemned any violations and would establish committees to investigate the veracity of videos of atrocities circulating online.

Western officials, including the UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper and Massad Boulos, US President Donald Trump’s adviser on Arab and African affairs, urged the militia to open up the area to humanitarian access and to “protect civilians”. But these entreaties from afar have had little obvious effect on the fighters on the ground.

Critics of the west’s ineffectual response to the Sudanese civil war said that only severe pressure on the UAE, which has allegedly backed the RSF with weapons supplies and trade in gold but denies involvement, could prevent further atrocities in El Fasher.

“It is beyond an open secret that the United Arab Emirates is arming and supporting the RSF,” said Protection Approaches, a UK-based charity that campaigns against identity-based violence.

“The single most effective action that could bring pause to the massacre in El Fasher is for the right call from Abu Dhabi to be placed to RSF leadership,” it added.

View original: https://www.ft.com/content/19d7f37b-cffe-4bf1-a64c-a88535ae017c#comments-anchor

End

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Sudan's military expels top UN food aid officials as conflict escalates. The WFP said directors of its Sudan operation were declared "personae non grata" and told to go within 72 hours, without explanation

INTERNATIONAL bodies such as the European Union and African Union have expressed alarm, while locals say the current situation is reminiscent of the region's darkest days.

Darfur experienced one of the world's gravest humanitarian disasters from 2003 to 2020. The Janjaweed, a militia who were accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing during this time, morphed into what is now the RSF.

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Sudanese people must pressure the African Union to do its job and not wait for the international community currently addressing 59 active conflicts

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Africa is a large rich continent comprising 54 countries. This is more than any other continent.

Sudan is an African country. Sudanese people are African. After more than twenty years since its inception during which time it has attracted billions of dollars of funding, aid and support, the African Union (aka AU) has failed Darfur, El Fasher and countless cities across Sudan and South Sudan.

In my view, after 22 years at Sudan Watch, the only way Sudanese people can help their people survive, save their homeland, natural riches and the creation of jobs, is to pressure the African Union into doing its job, demand a high standard of service, not settling for anything less than the best.

Leaders of the African Union need to be put under pressure to take immediate action or step aside for better qualified people to help and support Africans in Africa's war zones that the international community cannot quickly reach and is not welcomed or viewed as a long term solution.

_ _ _

Note:

"The international community is currently addressing 59 active conflicts across more than 35 countries, marking the highest level of global conflict since the end of the Second World War. This situation reflects a significant increase in violence and fragmentation, with the number of state-based armed conflicts reaching a record high in 2024."

Source: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

https://www.icrc.org/en/article/icrc-2024-upholding-humanity-conflict

End

Monday, October 27, 2025

UN has called for safe passage for trapped civilians out of el-Fasher North Darfur after RSF announced they had seized control of the army's main base there

UN Human rights chief Volker Türk warned that the "risk of further large-scale, ethnically motivated violations and atrocities in el-Fasher is mounting by the day".

Communication lines to el-Fasher have been almost completely cut off, while those who managed to flee are enduring harrowing hours filled with fear and uncertainty.

The UN's top humanitarian official Tom Fletcher said he was deeply alarmed at the reports of civilian casualties.

"With fighters pushing further into the city and escape routes cut off, hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped and terrified - shelled, starving, and without access to food, healthcare, or safety," Fletcher said in a statement.

Read more from BBC News

By Barbara Plett Usher, Africa correspondent

and Richard Kagoe, Africa editor, BBC World Service

Published Monday 27 October 2025, 08:42 GMT - full copy:

UN pleads for safe passage for civilians trapped in war-hit Sudan city

IMAGE SOURCE, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES. Image caption,

Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes because of the conflict in Sudan

The UN has called for safe passage for trapped civilians out of the Sudanese city of el-Fasher after paramilitary fighters announced they had seized control of the army's main base there.

Sudan's military has not acknowledged loss of the site, which would be a significant victory for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the ongoing civil war.

UN chief António Guterres said the latest fighting marked a "terrible escalation" in the conflict, adding that the suffering of civilians was "unbearable", AFP news agency reports.

El-Fasher is the last army foothold in the vast western region of Darfur, and has been besieged by the RSF and its allies for 18 months.

Heavy fighting has been reported since Saturday after RSF fighters captured the home of the North Darfur governor.

UN Human rights chief Volker Türk warned that the "risk of further large-scale, ethnically motivated violations and atrocities in el-Fasher is mounting by the day".

The Sudanese Doctors' Network said the RSF had already carried out ethnically motivated killings of dozens of people in the city and had looted medical facilities and pharmacies.

Imran Abdullah, an adviser to the RSF commander, denied the group's fighters were targeting civilians.

"On the contrary, they are the sole guarantor and protector of all those fleeing conflict areas, particularly in el-Fashir," he told BBC Arabic's Middle East Lifeline radio programme.

Social media videos verified by the BBC now show RSF combatants celebrating the capture of the army's el-Fasher headquarters.

They claim to have seized full control of the city, but the army's local allies say fighting continues in some parts.

Communication lines to el-Fasher have been almost completely cut off, while those who managed to flee are enduring harrowing hours filled with fear and uncertainty.

"We've witnessed many of our relatives being massacred - they were gathered in one place and all killed. Now we have no idea what has happened to those who are still alive," one man told the BBC.

Another resident who fled said they were "extremely worried, as we still have no information about what has happened to the people inside el-Fasher - the children, the elderly, the wounded".

The RSF has been accused of targeting civilians in airstrikes and trapping nearly 250,000 people after encircling the city with an earth wall, leaving many on the brink of starvation.

The city is one of the worst battlegrounds of Sudan's civil war, leading the UN to call it an "epicentre of suffering".

The UN's top humanitarian official Tom Fletcher said he was deeply alarmed at the reports of civilian casualties.

"Civilians must be allowed safe passage and be able to access aid," he added.

The US has also called for safe passage and is trying to negotiate a ceasefire.

Taking el-Fasher would be a crucial comeback for the RSF after defeat in Khartoum.

But it is likely a sign that the civil war will continue, not end.

Sudan has been ravaged by conflict since 2023, after top commanders of the RSF and Sudanese army fell out and a vicious power struggle ensued.

More than 150,000 people have died across the country and about 12 million have fled their homes, creating one of the worst humanitarian crises.

The army controls most of the north and the east, with el-Fasher being until now the last major urban centre in Darfur still held by government forces and its allies.

The RSF controls almost all of Darfur and much of the neighbouring Kordofan region.

The group has previously said that it hopes to form a rival government in el-Fasher when it assumes complete control.

Additional reporting by Natasha Booty, Damian Zane, Danai Nesta Kupemba and Peter Mwai