El-Fasher pleads for help as RSF slaughters its way to the city
- Middle East Eye
- Apr 14
- 7 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Witnesses tell MEE that paramilitary fighters indiscriminately killed civilians in their hundreds as they closed in on the North Darfur state capital
More than a million people in Sudan’s el-Fasher are pleading for protection after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) advanced on the city, killing hundreds of people while on its way.
Multiple sources in and around el-Fasher told Middle East Eye that the RSF is preparing to invade the city, which is the capital of North Darfur state and the only place in western Sudan still held by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its allies.
Ali Youssef al-Sharif, Sudan’s foreign minister, told MEE that the RSF’s offensive is intended to coincide with an international aid conference for Sudan held in London on Tuesday, and the paramilitary force will use its capture to declare a parallel government.
Over the weekend, RSF fighters tore through camps outside el-Fasher hosting Sudanese who were displaced during the 2003-2005 genocide in Darfur.
Eyewitnesses said hundreds of people were killed, including medics and aid workers, and much of the camps were burnt to the ground. The death toll from various areas of North Darfur is over 800 people, according to activists and officials. Fighters are preventing any aid from accessing the area.
Sharif said the RSF intends to use the camps as bases to launch their attacks on el-Fasher. An RSF spokesperson denied its fighters targeted civilians.
Bloody scenes
The bloodiest scenes were witnessed in Zamzam, a camp just south of the city.
Al-Sadig al-Nur, spokesman for a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement armed group that is headed by Darfur Governor Mini Minawi and fighting alongside SAF in el-Fasher, said at least 450 Zamzam residents were killed by the RSF.
“This barbaric attack and ethnic cleansing have led to the displacement of thousands of people to el-Fasher city from Zamzam camp. They are living now under bad humanitarian conditions,” he said.
The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed, Arab militias that, two decades ago, killed hundreds of thousands of Black African Sudanese in Darfur and displaced up to three million more.
Nur, whose SLA fought against the Janjaweed at the time, said the RSF again aimed to “displace indigenous people and cause wide demographic change in Darfur”.
Aid organisation Relief International said nine of its workers - the entire staff of the last medical clinic in Zamzam - were killed in the attack. Satellite images show widespread damage in the camp and raging fires.
Similar scenes were witnessed in Abu Shoak, a camp to the north of el-Fasher. A coordinator for Darfur’s displaced Sudanese told MEE that nearly 30 people were killed by RSF shelling there.
He said the RSF was targeting civilians and urged it to stop its attacks, cease exploiting the camps and using civilians as “human shields”.
“The two warring parties have to distance themselves from the camps,” he said.
Activists said at least 56 others were killed on Thursday and Friday in Um Kadadah, a town 180km to el-Fasher’s northeast.
Crying out for help
Sudanese who managed to escape the attack on Zamzam and Abu Shoak, as well as people already in el-Fasher, are calling on the international community and all Sudanese to support them.
Mohamed Adam, a resident of Zamzam who fled to el-Fasher on Sunday evening, said the RSF had massacred people across the camp.
“What I have seen is very brutal: they killed all the young men who are younger than 50 years old, they burnt the majority of the houses, they raped unknown numbers of women and intentionally displaced the people from the camp itself,” he told MEE.
“They even killed dozens of children inside a Khalwa, where the Quran is taught, with no mercy at all. They verbally abused people, telling us: ‘you are our slave and we will kill and rule you. We will go to el-Fasher and liberate it from the mercenaries and Islamists’.”
Since war broke out between the RSF and the Sudanese army on 15 April 2023, the paramilitary group has been accused of various violations, including massacres and sexual violence.
In June 2023, RSF fighters and allied militiamen killed around 15,000 members of the Black African Masalit community in West Darfur’s el-Geneina.
The United States has accused the RSF of genocide and sanctioned its leader, Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemeti. Washington has also sanctioned SAF leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing the military of war crimes such as indiscriminate bombing and obstructing aid.
The United Arab Emirates, the RSF's most significant backer, has been accused of complicity in genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Adam Issa, 53, lives in el-Fasher’s south with his four children and several members of his extended family. He told MEE he’s planning to escape as soon as he can.
“I’m afraid of the RSF attack. They will repeat what happened in el-Genena,” he told MEE, using the Starlink internet service.
Issa said the RSF will seek revenge against civilians because many of them took up arms against the paramilitary group in response to its atrocities.
“The city is very expensive, and there is a sharp lack of food and all basic needs - especially now thousands of people fled from Zamzam and Abu Shoak,” said another el-Fasher resident, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons.
Famine
Even before the latest attacks, the humanitarian situation in North Darfur has been dire.
According to the World Food Programme (WFP), eight areas of the state are experiencing famine, including Zamzam.
It said 638,000 people in Sudan face catastrophic hunger, but the WFP’s work is obstructed by a lack of access and funding.
Adam Rigal, a representative of Sudanese in Darfur’s displacement camps, said the situation in Abu Shoak and Zamzam is “very alarming”.
“The ongoing shelling on Abu Shoak camp has led to the destruction of the health centres. Water supply has been cut. There are no shelters or food, and the aid organisations have been withdrawn. The children, women and families are stranded everywhere without shelters,” he said.
“Thousands of other displaced people have also reached the Taweela area in North Darfur state, and they are in bad need of assistance.”
Reinforcements absent
The Rapid Support Forces has laid siege to el-Fasher and its environs for a year, with the army forced to air drop supplies to the city.
Yet recently, fewer air drops have managed to get through.
A SAF source stressed that the army is taking the issue of el-Fasher very seriously and won’t abandon the city to the RSF.
He said in recent days the paramilitaries had downed SAF planes around el-Fasher, and this had made it extremely difficult to resupply the city and its defenders, though he insisted the problem would be resolved soon.
The RSF says it shot down an Antonov cargo plane belonging to SAF. The Sudanese government, based in the SAF stronghold of Port Sudan, has accused unnamed countries of imposing an “air siege” on the North Darfur state capital.
The pause in supplies has not gone unnoticed. On social media, Sudanese have begun asking whether the SAF has abandoned el-Fasher.
Activists and members of the Resistance Committees, grassroots pro-democracy groups, have accused the army of choosing not to defend the city.
El-Fasher’s Resistance Committee said its members would continue fighting regardless of the military balance of power.
“If we are really patriotic, where is our seriousness in defending el-Fasher? Why have we seen this silence while el-Fasher is under this brutal attack?” it said on Sunday.
And Mini Minawi, who oversees a coalition of former Darfur rebel groups known as the Joint Forces, has urged SAF to break the siege as soon as possible.
Nur, spokesman of Minawi’s wing of the SLM, said air strikes on RSF targets have stopped alongside the air drops.
Nur said the Sudanese army massed a force in northern Sudan’s al-Dabab two months ago, but it had not been deployed to help el-Fasher. MEE could not independently confirm that the military was massing forces in al-Dabab.
“SAF has to move quickly to save the lives of a million and a half people. We also urge all of Sudan to help in saving el-Fahser; we shouldn’t leave to fight alone,” he said.
RSF advancing
On Sunday, the RSF declared it had seized complete control of Zamzam.
Abdul Rahim Dagalo, Hemeti’s brother and deputy, appeared in the camp and spoke about protecting civilian lives.
A spokesperson for the paramilitary group said: “The RSF categorically rejects the false allegations that its members targeted civilians within Zamzam camp and calls for accuracy and reliability in the reporting and assessment of events.”
The spokesperson claimed the Joint Forces and other SAF-aligned fighters used the camp as a military base, “deliberately exploiting innocent civilians as human shields”.
'Without urgent intervention, I expect SAF to withdraw'- Sudanese military expert
According to a Sudanese military expert, the ground and air siege on el-Fasher will make it extremely hard for the SAF to relieve the city.
“The RSF has controlled all directions leading to el-Fasher as they recently seized Um Kadada, al-Atron and Rahib al-Malha, among other areas,” said the expert, who asked for anonymity.
“In addition to the downing of the SAF plane recently, this makes it very difficult for SAF to continue in el-Fasher and without urgent intervention, I expect SAF to withdraw.”
However, two fighters in el-Fasher stressed to MEE that they won’t withdraw and will defend the city to the last moment.
“We will die here to the person. This is our land, and we will defend it to the last breath in our bodies,” said one.
- Daniel Hilton contributed to this story from London.
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