Fears of Mass Atrocities After Sudan’s El-Fasher Falls to Paramilitaries

The capture of Al-Fasher, the historic heart of Darfur, has fueled fears of mass murder reminiscent of the region’s darkest days.

After an 18-month siege of starvation and bombardment, the city is now under the control of Rapid Support Forces (RSF), descendants of the Janjaweed militia accused of genocide two decades ago.

The paramilitary group, which has been engaged in a brutal war with the army since April 2023, launched a final attack on the city in recent days and captured the army’s last positions.

In the neighboring North Kordofan region, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent said five Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers were killed in Bara on Monday and three others were missing after the RSF took control of the town on Saturday.

Analysts say Sudan is now effectively divided along an east-west axis, with the RSF running a parallel government along Darfur while the army is deployed in the north, east and center along the Nile and Red Sea.

For many, Al-Fasher’s fall revives memories of the 2000s, when Janjaweed destroyed villages and killed hundreds of thousands of people in what is believed to be one of the worst genocides of the 21st century.

However, this time the brutality is not hidden.

The military-linked foreign ministry said the crimes were “shamelessly documented by the perpetrators”.

– ‘Rwandan level’ –

Since the fall of the city on Sunday, RSF fighters have shared videos showing executions and mistreatment of civilians.

The RSF-led coalition said on Tuesday it would form a committee to verify the authenticity of the videos and allegations, adding that most of the videos were “fabricated” by the military.

The United Nations warned of “ethnically motivated violations and atrocities”, while the African Union condemned “escalating violence” and “alleged war crimes”.

The army’s ally, the Joint Forces, accused the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians, while pro-democracy groups called it “the worst violence and ethnic cleansing” since Sunday.

The UN said more than 26,000 people fled Al-Fasher in just two days, most on foot towards Tawila, 70 kilometers to the west.

“We are watching Rwanda-level mass destruction of people trapped inside,” said Nathaniel Raymond, a US war researcher and executive director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Laboratory (HRL).

During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, an estimated 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed in one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.

“The level, speed and totality of violence in Darfur is unlike anything I have ever seen,” Raymond, who has been documenting war crimes around the world for the past 25 years, told AFP.

About 177,000 civilians are trapped in Al-Fasher after RSF built 35 miles (56 kilometers) of earthen embankments, blocking off food, medicine and escape routes, according to the UN Migration Agency.

Once the center of the Sultanate of Darfur, a centuries-old African kingdom that flourished long before Khartoum existed, the streets of Al-Fasher are now littered with charred vehicles and corpses, smoke rising from shattered neighborhoods.

A clip released on Monday showed bodies next to burnt cars. Another showed an RSF gunman, identified by AFP as a notorious fighter known for execution videos on his TikTok account where he bragged about killings in newly captured areas, opening fire on a crowd of civilians.

– A new power map –

Pro-democracy activists also accused RSF of executing all the wounded receiving treatment at the Saudi Hospital in Al-Fasher.

Satellite analysis by Yale’s HRL revealed door-to-door killings, mass graves, red stains, and bodies looming over the city’s ridge, consistent with eyewitness accounts.

“We think these red stains are puddles of blood from bleeding bodies,” Raymond said, describing images showing “objects consistent with human bodies” and ditches filled with corpses.

For many Sudanese, these tactics sound hauntingly familiar.

But Yale University’s Raymond said the RSF has become more lethal and militarily better equipped over time.

“These people have an air force… no one can hide because they can see them from the air,” he said.

Raymond also warned that the current violence will not end in Al-Fasher but will spread to other non-Arab communities.

Zaghawa, the dominant group in Al-Fasher, has long viewed the RSF’s advance as an existential threat.

RSF has been accused of massacres in El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, in 2023, which killed up to 15,000 people from another non-Arab group, Masalit.

“The chances of peace are very low,” said Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair.

“Neither the army nor the RSF are willing to hold ceasefires or genuine peace talks for strategic or battlefield reasons,” he told AFP.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and triggered the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis. Both sides are accused of widespread atrocities.