RSF Advances in El Fasher in Darfur (Sudan)
Murad Makhmudov, Michiyo Tanabe, and Kanako Mita
Modern Tokyo Times
Despite the United Nations (UN) imploring the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied Arab militias last year to end their deadly siege of El Fasher, their pleas fell on deaf ears. The RSF, after surrounding the city, are now pressing deeper into its neighborhoods.
On Sunday, a spokesperson for the RSF said that they “managed to liberate the 6th Division in el-Fasher, breaking the back of the army and its allies by establishing full control over this strategic military base.”
The Sudan Tribune reported (October 26), “Over the past three days, the RSF had made rapid advances towards the division’s headquarters, taking control of the North Darfur government secretariat, the ministerial complex, and several government institutions near the military base, tightening its siege.”
Nothing captures the tragedy of El Fasher more than this: nearly 40% of its young children are battling acute malnutrition, their fragile lives hanging in the balance while the world’s gaze remains fixed on Gaza and Ukraine.
Darfur, once the world’s rallying cry against genocide, is again drowning in blood. Two decades ago, Arab militias were accused of slaughtering Black African communities—the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa—leaving hundreds of thousands dead. Now, that same nightmare has returned. Since Sudan’s latest war began, ethnic violence has reignited, and Black African civilians across Darfur are once again being hunted, displaced, and killed.
The world said “never again.” But in Darfur, the promise has been broken.
The Guardian recently reported, “For 549 days El Fasher has been surrounded by fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have prevented all humanitarian access entering the city as it attempts to seize the army’s last stronghold in west Sudan.”
Al Jazeera reports, “Capturing el-Fasher would be a significant military and political victory for the RSF, and could hasten a physical split of the country by enabling the paramilitary group to consolidate its control over the vast Darfur region, which it has identified as the base for a parallel government established this summer.”
Tom Fletcher (UN Relief Chief) said, “Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped and terrified – shelled, starving, and without access to food, healthcare, or safety.”
The BBC says, “There are still some parts of el-Fasher under the control of the army and allied armed groups – but those are not expected to hold out for long now.”
UN investigators have repeatedly accused the RSF of committing crimes against humanity amid their brutal siege of El Fasher. Even the former U.S. administration of President Joe Biden concluded that the RSF’s campaign amounted to genocide against Darfur’s non-Arab people.
Already, the Sudan Doctors’ Network claims a fresh ethnic massacre. This network announced the RSF “carried out a horrific massacre on Sunday evening against unarmed civilians in El Fasher, on an ethnic basis, in a crime of ethnic cleansing.”
Since Sudan’s war broke out in 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, as many as 150,000 people have been killed — a number that likely underestimates the true scale of the carnage. Some 12 million people have been forced to flee, while harrowing accounts continue to surface of rape, sexual slavery, and ethnic massacres by the RSF, along with brutal killings of prisoners by both sides.
Catherine Russell (the Executive Director of UNICEF – actively involved in highlighting the crisis in Sudan) said, “Children as young as one being raped by armed men should shock anyone to their core and compel immediate action… Millions of children in Sudan are at risk of rape and other forms of sexual violence, which is being used as a tactic of war. This is an abhorrent violation of international law and could constitute a war crime. It must stop.”
Lee Jay Walker (Modern Tokyo Times analyst) says, “Ethnic cleansing by the RSF is not confined to Darfur; other regions of Sudan are also enduring violence. In areas such as the Nuba Mountains and South Kordofan, reports of ongoing ethnic massacres underscore the widespread and systematic nature of the attacks.”
The likely complete fall of El Fasher signals a step toward the gradual partition of Sudan along —a nation that already lost South Sudan due to divisions of ethnicity and religion.
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