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Since mid-May, attacks by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied militias on El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, Sudan, have escalated. Their opponents, the Sudanese armed forces and their allies, have fought from within the town, also placing hundreds of thousands of people at risk.
If the city of El Fasher falls to the RSF, recent history tells us, further atrocities against civilians are likely.
A few weeks ago, we looked at how a similar situation unfolded in El Geneina, the capital city of West Darfur, last year. In El Geneina, the RSF and their allies carried out wave after wave of attacks targeting ethnic Massalit people. They killed unarmed civilians in their thousands, raped women and girls, and tortured detainees.
They also looted on a massive scale and razed entire neighborhoods to the ground. They sent half a million people fleeing over the border to Chad.
Many of these atrocities are war crimes or crimes against humanity. The targeting of the Massalit ethnic group, with the apparent aim to have them permanently leave Darfur is ethnic cleansing.
It is also possible the RSF and their allies killed Massalit civilians with the specific intent to destroy in whole or in part the Massalit population in at least West Darfur. That would mean we’re looking at possible genocide.
The world failed to respond to those atrocities. They have to do more for civilians in El Fasher and elsewhere.
There’s a kind of double déjà vu going on here. In the shorter term, the city of El Fasher is threatened with the same destruction as the city of El Geneina. In the longer view, the mass atrocity crimes unfolding in Darfur today are reminiscent of those committed in Darfur in 2003-04.
It’s no surprise, perhaps, given the RSF is largely recruited from the old Janjaweed, the militia known for their appalling crimes against non-Arab groups, including the Massalit, 20 years ago.
Adding to the scale of the impending horrors today, El Fasher had been a place where people sought refuge. Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the violence in other parts of Darfur ended up in El Fasher.
Since the conflict started in April 2023, we’ve been ringing alarm bells about the crisis, over and over, and highlighting the international community’s failure to address it.
On Thursday, the UN Security Council approved a resolution demanding the RSF halt the siege of El Fasher. It calls for accountability for grave crimes, including sexual violence. It also warns of imminent famine, especially in Darfur.
This is a good step, bringing much-needed global attention to the crisis and putting all warring parties on notice that the world is watching their actions.
However, it’s still far from enough.
The situation in Darfur demands an international presence with the job of protecting civilians there. The UN Secretary-General should work with the African Union to create and deploy one.
The urgent need for such a mission cannot be stressed strongly enough.
