Around 260,000 civilians are trapped in El Fasher, half of them children. For months, the city has been besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia and cut off from the outside world. For a long time now, food has not been reaching El Fasher, which is located in the province of Darfur, about 200 kilometers from the border with Chad. According to eyewitnesses, many people are now living on animal feed.On Monday, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said that the level of suffering caused by fighting in the city is “unbearable”.The statement followed the most recent announcement by the paramilitary RSF that it had gained complete control of the city on Sunday. According to the Sudanese Journalists’ union, all communications have now been blocked, including satellite networks.
Fears of further escalation
Observers fear that the stranded civilian population will have to endure excessive violence. For months, civilians and soldiers of the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, stationed in El Fasher have had little more than the bare necessities, Marina Peter, chairwoman of the German Sudan and South Sudan Forum, told DW. “For weeks, trapped civilians have been trying to leave the city. Since it became apparent that the RSF could take over the city completely, attempts to flee have increased once again,” she said.However, in her view, they have little chance of success. “Until recently, some people were able to flee while others were shot while trying to escape,” she explained, adding that many more have been arrested. “We now fear mass shootings, rapes and a further worsening of the famine. According to our contacts in the city, on average three children are dying every hour,” she told DW.
Power struggle
The conflict in Sudan dates back to the end of the authoritarian rule of President Omar al-Bashir in 2019 who had based his power on the official army: the Sudanese Armed Forces, now under the command of Sudan’s de facto ruler, general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. At the same time, however, al-Bashir also relied on several militias affiliated with the army, including the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, also known as “Hemeti.”Along with the SAF, Hemeti’s group were integrated into a civilian-led transitional council formed after al-Bashir’s fall. In October 2021, both forces staged a joint coup and Hemeti became Al-Burhan’s deputy. However, the two commanders then disagreed about the structure and hierarchy of a joint army. When Hemeti refused to integrate his militia into the national army, the situation turned into an open power struggle that escalated into war.
Murder, rape, and looting
Originating from the Janjaweed, a group of Arab-origin cavalry militias, the Rapid Support Forces were deployed shortly after the turn of the millennium to combat rebel groups who were not considered Arab but African, such as the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in West Darfur. At that time, the militias already used extreme violence, including against civilians.“The RSF and its allied militias targeted and killed civilians on a large scale, many of them because of their ethnicity,” said a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in June. “The RSF have also committed widespread sexual violence, particularly gang rape, and looting. They have also destroyed towns and villages, often by arson, and looted aid supplies on a large scale,” the report stated. The International Court of Justice sees evidence of war crimes in Sudan.
Demoralising the enemy
Marina Peter now fears that this pattern is about to repeat itself in El Fasher in the coming days. In many cases, the commanders are in charge of soldiers who are heavily drugged. Some of them are also child soldiers, she said. “We are familiar with the pattern and logic now being applied in El Fasher from other places in Sudan,” Peter added.“The aim is to demoralise the enemy. And the most efficient way to do that is by raping women and, increasingly, men. In addition, the RSF has dug trenches around the city so that no one can escape. The aim is to systematically starve the city. Human lives do not count in this conflict.”Arjan Hehenkamp from the aid organisation International Rescue Committee (IRC), crisis manager for Darfur, reports similar experiences. Some have managed to flee to the city of Tawila, where hundreds of thousands of people are already seeking refuge.“People arriving from El Fasher are coming from what can only be described as a hellscape, a city torn apart by conflict, destruction, and despair,” he said on the organisation’s website. “They come with nothing but the clothes on their backs, severely traumatised, looking for safety and support. But Tawila itself is at breaking point. Without a significant scale-up in humanitarian assistance, the suffering here will deepen further,” he added.But it is not only the RSF that is using violence against civilians. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have also committed “cruel attacks on the civilian population,” according to the HRW report. “The list of their atrocities is growing almost daily,” the report states.For months, there have been fears that Sudan could fall apart as a result of the war. “This danger is becoming more real with every day of this war,” Marina Peter predicts.
