Letter to Representative Chris Smith concerning genocide emergency in El Fasher

Written By Mark Hackett

Representative Chris Smith (U.S. House of Representatives)

Operation Broken Silence is joining over 30 organizations in urging Representative Chris Smith, a long-time advocate and friend to the Sudanese people, to bring the urgent situation in Sudan to the White House.

Read The Letter

Sudan is home to the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe. The country is collapsing after two and a half years of brutal warfare between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Neighborhoods in Khartoum lie in ruins. In Darfur, entire communities have already been wiped out by RSF-led violence. Families are fleeing with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Famine is spreading, and access to basic healthcare is disappearing.

There is perhaps no other place more dangerous in Sudan than El Fasher in North Darfur. The city has been surrounded by the RSF for 16 months, and the nearby displacement camps are now largely destroyed after months of extreme shelling and RSF killings. 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. The United Nations estimates at least 260,000 Sudanese citizens are still trapped in the area, nearly half of which are children.

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.

The international community has now had 16 months to take decisive action on the genocide emergency in El Fasher, and Sudan more broadly. What little progress that was being made was due to American policy under the Biden Administration. That has since ended under the Trump Administration. There is still no US Special Envoy for Sudan and USAID-backed programs in Sudan have been gutted.

Today, security conditions in El Fasher are rapidly worsening. It is all but certain that the RSF will overrun the city in the next few weeks, if not sooner. This situation was preventable. At any point in the last 16 months the international community could have taken decisive action to get more food and medicine into the city, as well as reduce the free flow of weapons to the RSF, weapons that have allowed this siege to continue. World leaders chose not to act. Tens of thousands of lives hang by a thread because of it.

In what are likely these final days for El Fasher as it has long been known, there is still time to act. We hope Representative Smith once again raises his voice to the highest levels of American government on behalf of the Sudanese people. There is still time to stave off the looming massacre.

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  • Operation Broken Silence is joining over 30 organizations in urging Representative Chris Smith, a long-time advocate and friend to the Sudanese people, to bring the urgent situation in Sudan to the White House.   https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/letter-to-representative-chris-smith-concerning-genocide-emergency-in-el-fasher

  • Sudan is home to the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe. The country is collapsing after two and a half years of brutal warfare between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/letter-to-representative-chris-smith-concerning-genocide-emergency-in-el-fasher

  • It is widely expected that if the Rapid Support Forces overrun the Greater El Fasher area, the genocidal paramilitary force will engage in a massacre on a scale unprecedented in the 21st century. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/letter-to-representative-chris-smith-concerning-genocide-emergency-in-el-fasher

  • Operation Broken Silence is dedicated to Sudanese communities, cultivating resilience and driving meaningful change through crowdfunded programs. Will you join us? https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/letter-to-representative-chris-smith-concerning-genocide-emergency-in-el-fasher

Mark Hackett
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