“Death is everywhere” — Inside the Sudanese city under siege by a genocidal militia
Fighter jets roar overhead. Shells smash into homes and markets. Children succumb to famine. A genocidal militia inches closer by the day. The cemeteries in El Fasher, North Darfur are now so large they can be seen by satellites.
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Like countless other Sudanese who have been trapped in El Fasher for months, Ibrahim was recently forced to flee for the third time in mid September. “The neighborhood I was in was bombed by Rapid Support,” Ibrahim says. “We survive by moving.”
17 months of war between the national army and a genocidal militia called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has torn Sudan to shreds. The country became home to the largest humanitarian and displacement crises in the world many months ago, a fact only a handful of journalists and globally-minded citizens are now beginning to realize. Khartoum already lies in ruins, as do countless other towns and villages the war has swept through, or that the RSF has massacred. Multiple areas of Sudan have descended into famine.
Map: Location of El Fasher. (Operation Broken Silence)
There is perhaps no other place in Sudan right now that shows just how dangerous this emergency has become than El Fasher. Home to an estimated two million people, the city and surrounding displacement camps have been surrounded by the RSF for five terrifying months.
It is widely expected that if the RSF overruns the Greater El Fasher area, the genocidal paramilitary force will engage in a massacre on a scale unprecedented in the 21st century. Many residents and displaced people here belong to ethnic African groups like the Zaghawa and Fur that the predominantly Arab RSF is openly targeting for annihilation. A sizable portion of the RSF rank and file adheres to an extremely racist, Arab-supremacist ideology that seeks to ethnically cleanse Darfur of African tribal groups and claims all other Sudanese Arabs are inferior.
“If the bombs don’t kill us we will starve,” Ibrahim says. “We live on borrowed time. I beg the world sees us before time runs out.”
A catastrophe long in the making
Darfur is not only home to historically-persecuted African tribes, but is also the stronghold of their main oppressor: the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF was born from the Arab militias that spearheaded the 2000s Darfur genocide. The militias were known then as janjaweed, a term loosely understood as devils on horseback. With arms provided by the Khartoum regime, the janjaweed swept into ethnically African villages, massacring defenseless civilians and destroying clean water wells, orchards and farms, and markets.
In 2013, the regime rebranded and consolidated the janjaweed militias into the Rapid Support Forces and began arming the paramilitaries with machine gun-mounted trucks, artillery and rockets, and anti-aircraft guns. The RSF spread into other parts of Sudan as it rapidly grew, seizing gold-rich land to further enrich and arm itself. Survivors of RSF attacks throughout the 2010s reported that some paramilitaries were not even Sudanese, but were mercenaries from Chad, Central African Republic, and even as far away as Mali.
The army teamed up with their RSF allies in October 2021, overthrowing a transitional government that was steering Sudan toward a democratic future. The RSF’s participation in the coup proved the paramilitary force’s power rivaled the army. Both sides expected to be the top player in their new regime. Predictably, in April 2023, RSF and army forces opened fire on each other in Khartoum and failed to assassinate the other side’s leadership.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away in Darfur, communities braced for an inevitable return to mass killing. Within days the RSF launched a long-planned assault on Darfur’s African tribes, most notably the Masalit in West Darfur. The scale of death and destruction in the Masalit Genocide has been shocking, with an estimated 15,000 people exterminated in West Darfur’s state capital alone. Refugees streaming into Chad bring stories of mass graves, Masalit men and boys being hunted down and executed, and skyrocketing levels of rape and assault, all in an environment where RSF fighters call them “slaves” and other racist epithets.
The situation spiraled further in October 2023, when the RSF launched a lightening offensive across Darfur that saw state capitals and villages fall in rapid succession. El Fasher was largely spared due to a fragile ceasefire brokered by local leaders. Many people unable to escape Darfur fled to the city, one of the last safe havens in all of western Sudan.
Time may be running out
The El Fasher ceasefire collapsed in April when the RSF cut off the last road into the area, trapping an estimated two million Sudanese with dwindling food, water, and health services. Defending El Fasher is the army’s 6th Infantry Division, surviving Darfuri rebels from the 2000s genocide, pro-army militias, and volunteer Zaghawa fighters trying to protect their people.
Opposition to the RSF has united some of these former enemies for now. They collectively promised to make El Fasher the “graveyard of the janjaweed” and “fight to the death” if required. Attritional combat has been ongoing ever since, with regular surges of violence as the RSF has made repeated efforts to take key positions on the outskirts of the city.
After months of attritional warfare, the RSF seems now to be in the middle of a major assault to overrun El Fasher. The following images are from recent reports by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which is using satellites and open source information to track the RSF’s siege of El Fasher (use the navigation arrows to see more):
Extremely violent battles in the eastern parts of the city —including near face-to-face combat— have seen at least one of the army’s main defensive lines breached and the RSF make advances deep into central El Fasher. On September 19, RSF fighters managed to overrun army positions close to the Grand Market, less than a mile away from the army’s headquarters. The army and their Darfuri rebel allies claim to have repelled the attack, but to what extent is unknown. Both sides are taking heavy causalities.
Eyewitnesses have reported seeing some army units depart the army’s headquarters and a subsequent increase in army checkpoints on the main highway south out of El Fasher toward Zamzam Displacement Camp. This suggests the army and their allies are worried they will be unable to hold El Fasher in the coming weeks and may be preparing to retreat further south toward Zamzam.
Civilians are fleeing El Fasher en masse toward Zamzam, with a number of neighborhoods in El Fasher already abandoned. Yale HRL observed what appears to be displaced civilians fleeing on the road south to Zamzam (see above images). An uptick in foot traffic on the highway was first noticed in early September and continues today.
Map by Operation Broken Silence. Click or tap to expand.
Cemeteries in El Fasher and the surrounding camps have expanded rapidly the past few months. Much like the rest of Sudan, no one knows the true death toll here. What is known is that the area is a free-fire zone, with RSF and army forces placing no restrictions on the use of weaponry. RSF artillery tears through civilian neighborhoods and army warplanes and helicopter gunships bomb just about anything that moves in RSF-controlled areas.
This is why Ibrahim and so many others like him have been forced to flee over and over again to different parts of El Fasher, where food is running out and extreme hunger kills children daily. It has now been three months since Zamzam Displacement Camp and other areas of El Fasher descended into famine. A combination of the RSF blocking humanitarian aid to the area (and the army doing the same to larger swaths of Darfur), dwindling resources, destruction of healthcare facilities, and seasonal floods has given way to severe malnutrition and preventable disease outbreaks.
But the worst likely still lies ahead. If the RSF manages to overrun El Fasher proper, it is highly likely the paramilitary force will launch a brazen attack on Zamzam in the aftermath. Zaghawa militias are reportedly preparing to defend the camp and the other anti-RSF forces in El Fasher have virtually nowhere else to go. Even if Zamzam were demilitarized, the RSF’s long history of targeting the ethnic African minorities present in the camp suggests the paramilitary force will attack Zamzam anyways.
And even if the army and their local allies manage to hold El Fasher in the weeks ahead, the RSF’s deliberate, attritional siege is succeeding in doing what it was designed to: strangle human life in the area. Whether this massacre is committed all at once or continues playing out at a slow and brutal pace, it remains a massacre nonetheless.
To translate all of this in the plainest of terms: El Fasher is home to one of the largest genocide emergencies in the world today. The international community has had months to take a more forceful approach to relieve the siege —as many residents have been crying out for— and has refused to do so. We must continue doing everything we can to help local heroes on the ground save lives.
Our Sudanese sisters in Zamzam need your help
Left: A special food distribution for children. Right: Team Zamzam prepares to distribute emergency relief. (Team Zamzam)
Team Zamzam is made up of 20 female counselors who are distributing food, sanitizing soap, and medicine to the disabled and blind, the elderly, unaccompanied children, widows who have taken in children, and those with severe acute malnutrition. They have also provided counseling services to over 4,000 women who were sexually assaulted.
In August, Team Zamzam carried out an evaluation on most segments of the camp. The counselors distributed emergency aid comprised of red lentils, flour, and sugar to 1,123 vulnerable families. Beneficiaries included 20 widows, 63 orphans, 12 families with physically disabled family members, 13 families with paralyzed children, 72 families with acute malnutrition, and more.
Team Zamzam needs at least $20,000 per month to continue saving lives at this scale. Even more will help expand their direly needed services. Whether you can spare $10 or $1,000 doesn't matter; what matters is that we all do our part to support these brave women in this dark hour.
Here are just a few ways your donation can help:
$5,000 - support all the work Team Zamzam does for an entire week.
$2,500 - repair a broken water pump and increase the supply of clean water.
$1,000 - provide basic medicines, sanitary kits, soap, and surgical masks.
$500 - help deliver emergency food assistance to families who are starving.
$200 - support two counselors for one month.
$100 - support a counselor’s services for one month.
Checks can be made payable to Operation Broken Silence and mailed to PO Box 770900 Memphis, TN 38177-0900.
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Operation Broken Silence is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. Your donations are tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law.
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Fighter jets roar overhead. Shells smash into homes and markets. Children succumb to famine. A genocidal militia inches closer by the day. The cemeteries in El Fasher, North Darfur are now so large they can be seen by satellites. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/inside-the-sudanese-city-under-siege-by-a-genocidal-militia
Extremely violent battles in the eastern parts of the city —including near face-to-face combat— have seen at least one of the army’s main defensive lines breached and the RSF make advances deep into central El Fasher. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/inside-the-sudanese-city-under-siege-by-a-genocidal-militia
Cemeteries in El Fasher and the surrounding camps have expanded rapidly. No one knows the true death toll here. What is known is that the area is a free-fire zone, with RSF and army forces placing no restrictions on the use of weaponry. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/inside-the-sudanese-city-under-siege-by-a-genocidal-militia
El Fasher is home to one of the largest genocide emergencies in the world today. The international community has had months to take a more forceful approach to relieve the siege —as many residents have been crying out for— and has refused to do so. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/inside-the-sudanese-city-under-siege-by-a-genocidal-militia
Team Zamzam is made up of 20 female counselors who are distributing food to the disabled and blind, the elderly, unaccompanied children, widows who have taken in children, and those with severe acute malnutrition. And they need your help. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/inside-the-sudanese-city-under-siege-by-a-genocidal-militia
