Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have seized control of El Fasher, a city in Sudan's western Darfur region, and reports are emerging of mass killings and other atrocities committed by the paramilitary group. The situation on the ground is dire, with hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in the city, which has been under siege for 18 months.
Eyewitnesses have described scenes of unimaginable brutality, including fighters from the RSF shooting unarmed civilians at point-blank range, and footage showing dozens of people lying dead on the ground alongside burnt-out vehicles. The Sudanese army has accused the RSF of executing over 2,000 civilians in recent days, but these claims are difficult to verify.
Satellite imagery analysis by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University suggests that the city is being subjected to systematic and intentional ethnic cleansing, with forced displacement and summary execution of indigenous communities. The lab's director, Nathaniel Raymond, compared the level of violence to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide.
The RSF has been engaged in a bloody civil war with the army since April 2023, resulting in over 150,000 deaths and 14 million displaced people. Fears had been mounting for the safety of tens of thousands of civilians trapped in El Fasher, who are now facing a growing risk of "ethnically motivated violations and atrocities".
The UN rights chief has described the situation as "alarming", with reports of summary execution and ethnic motivations for killings. News agencies have struggled to contact civilians in the city due to a media blackout, which has left them without access to satellite networks.
Experts warn that the RSF's capture of El Fasher marks a significant turning point in the war, with the paramilitary group now controlling all five state capitals in Darfur and raising concerns about partition. The situation on the ground is dire, with over 1 million people having fled the city since the start of the war, and many more trapped without aid.
The humanitarian response to the crisis is also under strain, with teams from Médecins Sans Frontières facing a massive influx of wounded civilians in Tawila, a town 45 miles west of El Fasher. The International Rescue Committee has described the situation as "at breaking point", warning that without significant scale-up in humanitarian assistance, the suffering will deepen further.
Eyewitnesses have described scenes of unimaginable brutality, including fighters from the RSF shooting unarmed civilians at point-blank range, and footage showing dozens of people lying dead on the ground alongside burnt-out vehicles. The Sudanese army has accused the RSF of executing over 2,000 civilians in recent days, but these claims are difficult to verify.
Satellite imagery analysis by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University suggests that the city is being subjected to systematic and intentional ethnic cleansing, with forced displacement and summary execution of indigenous communities. The lab's director, Nathaniel Raymond, compared the level of violence to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide.
The RSF has been engaged in a bloody civil war with the army since April 2023, resulting in over 150,000 deaths and 14 million displaced people. Fears had been mounting for the safety of tens of thousands of civilians trapped in El Fasher, who are now facing a growing risk of "ethnically motivated violations and atrocities".
The UN rights chief has described the situation as "alarming", with reports of summary execution and ethnic motivations for killings. News agencies have struggled to contact civilians in the city due to a media blackout, which has left them without access to satellite networks.
Experts warn that the RSF's capture of El Fasher marks a significant turning point in the war, with the paramilitary group now controlling all five state capitals in Darfur and raising concerns about partition. The situation on the ground is dire, with over 1 million people having fled the city since the start of the war, and many more trapped without aid.
The humanitarian response to the crisis is also under strain, with teams from Médecins Sans Frontières facing a massive influx of wounded civilians in Tawila, a town 45 miles west of El Fasher. The International Rescue Committee has described the situation as "at breaking point", warning that without significant scale-up in humanitarian assistance, the suffering will deepen further.
sudan is literally burning 
and no one's doing anything about it 
2k+ civilians killed by rsf is straight up horrific 
can't even verify these numbers but it feels like genocide 
anyone else watching this situation unfold? 
darfur's been in chaos for years but now it's getting to the point where we're talking ethnic cleansing 
and i'm just over here thinking 'when will someone do something about this' 
the UN rights chief is spot on saying this situation is alarming, but what are they doing about it? 
international community needs to take immediate action to stop these atrocities. 
humanitarian response teams are stretched thin trying to help those trapped in El Fasher, we need more resources and support ASAP! 
what's going on with these RSF guys? they're like a special forces group but instead of fighting bad guys, they're just causing all this harm to innocent people. 1 mil people have fled el fasher already and it's still not safe for the ones left behind. it's like they're trapped in some sort of nightmare 
OMG u guys, this is like super tragic 
. That's like a small city of people lost 
... forced displacement & summary execution of indigenous communities 
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. And the UN rights chief is saying it's all "alarming" 
... with ethnically motivated killings & summary executions 
... Sudan needs help, like NOW 
. Everyone's all over them for the atrocities, but what about the Sudanese army? They're just as guilty, if not more so. I mean, come on, 2,000 civilians allegedly killed by the RSF in a few days? That sounds fishy to me 
. And don't even get me started on the media blackout in El Fasher. Sounds like they're trying to cover something up 
.
.
Either way, I think we need more nuance here and less knee-jerk reactions 
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i just wish there was more hope for these guys and their families to get through this without too much suffering 
️. I mean, we all know this war has been bloody for years, but it's times like these that make me wonder if anyone's really listenin' or carin' 
.
. We need to be makin' noise and demandin' change, not just sendin' our condolences from the sidelines