El Fasher has fallen. And with it, another piece of Sudan
Rights — di Leila Belhadj Mohamed
El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur still held by the Sudanese army, has been seized by the Rsf
El Fasher has fallen. And with it, another piece of Sudan
El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur still held by the Sudanese army, has been seized by the Rsf
In Sudan, the city of El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, represented for months the last stronghold of the Sudanese army (Saf) in the region. At the end of October 2025, after a siege lasting more than eighteen months, the militias of the Rapid Support Forces (Rsf) captured the city.
While territorial gains elsewhere in the country were swift for both factions, in El Fasher the fighting that led to the siege was marked by daily bombardments, attacks on hospitals and a blockade on humanitarian aid. The seizure of the city by the former janjaweed militiamen was catastrophic for the civilian population. Videos of summary executions, mass displacement, looting and fires in nearby refugee camps — such as the large Zamzam camp — were immediately circulated on social media. As in the case of Idf soldiers, here too it was the militiamen themselves who filmed and uploaded videos of their crimes online. Following the spread of the videos, Rsf leader Hemedti announced the opening of an inquiry commission into the crimes committed by his militias.
The city is not merely a regional capital, but a strategic and symbolic hub. With El Fasher under Rsf control, Darfur is now almost entirely in the hands of the militias led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. And this could mark a point of no return in the territorial and political fragmentation of Sudan.
🔴 The hot sand around the Sudanese city of El Fasher is stained red with the blood of more than 2,000 massacred civilians
See how journalists used satellite imagery to reconstruct the scale of violence ⬇️
telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…
See how journalists used satellite imagery to reconstruct the scale of violence ⬇️
telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…
A two-and-a-half-year war
The war in Sudan began on 15 April 2023, when the fragile balance between the Sudanese army (Saf), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rsf militias under Hemedti's command, collapsed. The dispute, formally linked to the integration of the Rsf into the regular armed forces, concealed in reality a power struggle rooted in the years of Omar al-Bashir's dictatorship.
Within a matter of weeks, the conflict devastated Khartoum, Darfur and the Kordofan regions. It is estimated that as many as 150,000 people may have been killed, millions of civilians were forced to flee, and the country's already fragile economy collapsed. Ethnic violence in Darfur and deliberate attacks against civilians have replicated the same scenario witnessed during the Darfur war of the early 2000s, when the janjaweed, also led by Hemedti, committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Those same militiamen are now part of the Rsf.
The humanitarian catastrophe
With the fall of El Fasher, the humanitarian crisis in the country has crossed a new threshold. According to the United Nations, thousands of people have been killed in Sudan since the beginning of the war, more than 11 million people have been forced to flee their homes, and around 24.6 million are living in conditions of acute food insecurity. In Darfur, the combination of siege, systematic destruction of infrastructure and obstructed access to relief has transformed the region into a vast open-air refugee camp.
During the siege, El Fasher took in tens of thousands of internally displaced people in extreme conditions: scarce water, insufficient food, hospitals bombed or shut down. Humanitarian corridors were constantly blocked by fighting and restrictions imposed by the militias. The World Food Programme (Wfp) describes this as the worst food crisis in recent history, while Unhcr and Médecins Sans Frontières report that many areas of Darfur are now unreachable.
Alongside hunger and epidemics, the conflict has produced a dramatic rise in war crimes and crimes against humanity. The United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented summary executions, mass rape, deliberate attacks on civilians and hospitals, the intentional destruction of refugee camps and the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.
The International Criminal Court has opened new investigations into crimes committed in Darfur, building on previous arrest warrants issued against the regime of Omar al-Bashir. In July 2024, prosecutor Karim Khan reported to the United Nations Security Council that the situation "presents elements of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing" and announced the gathering of evidence on the massacres in Geneina and Nyala.
Karim Khan, ICC prosecutor appeals for testimony and evidence relating to the ongoing violence in the Darfur region of Sudan to prosecute those responsible.
Both parties to the conflict are also accused of recruiting child soldiers. According to UNICEF and the UN mission in Sudan, boys as young as twelve are being forced to fight or carry out military support tasks on the most unstable fronts. Many of these minors are compelled to join combatants in exchange for food or protection.
These crimes compound the humanitarian collapse. In a country where more than 70 per cent of healthcare facilities are no longer functioning and where aid distribution is obstructed or exploited as political leverage, the distinction between war and civilian extermination has all but ceased to exist.
The diplomatic deadlock after the Paris Conference
In April 2024, the International Conference on Sudan organised in Paris by France, Germany and the European Union had raised more than two billion euros in pledges to support the Sudanese population and neighbouring countries hosting refugees. The initiative represented an attempt to revive multilateral diplomacy after months of stalemate. But, as had happened before, the enthusiasm quickly faded.
Much of the promised funding never arrived, and operations on the ground could not rely on secure channels for aid distribution. At the same time, regional diplomacy — in particular that of the African Union — multiplied mediation efforts, without managing to produce lasting ceasefires.
Diplomatic fragmentation did the rest: each actor promoted its own initiative, often in competition with the others. The result was an almost total paralysis. On the ground, meanwhile, the two factions consolidated their respective power bases. The SAF maintained control of the Red Sea and the eastern coast, headquartered in Port Sudan, while the RSF extended their influence over Darfur and Kordofan.
Complicating the picture further is the proxy war. Several international reports have flagged support from the United Arab Emirates for the RSF, particularly in the supply of weapons and drones in exchange for gold, while Egypt and Saudi Arabia continue to back the regular army. Russia, through the Wagner group, has maintained commercial and military ties in Darfur linked to gold exploitation, while Iran is reported to have provided technological support and drones to the Sudanese armed forces.
In April 2025, in London, a new international conference sought to revive the political process. But that gathering, too, concluded with statements of principle and few concrete measures.
Yesterday in Washington, the United States hosted Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates for a meeting of the Quad to advance collective efforts toward peace and stability in Sudan including efforts for securing an urgent humanitarian truce, achieving a permanent
A few days before the fall of El Fasher, there had also been new attempts at indirect mediation between SAF and RSF delegates, promoted by the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt — the so-called "Quad". The meetings, hosted in Washington, aimed at a three-month ceasefire and at securing humanitarian corridors in Darfur. The negotiations broke down abruptly just as the RSF intensified their offensive on El Fasher, rendering any agreement immediately obsolete.
The result is a complete deadlock. While diplomatic forums multiply, the war continues unabated. The appeals of the United Nations and NGOs go unheeded, and international attention — already pulled in different directions by Gaza and Ukraine — struggles to keep Sudan on the global political agenda.
