Sudanese women, mainly students, take part in an organized protest against violations committed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces to the people of El- Fasher, in Gedaref city eastern Sudan, on Thursday.STR/AFP/Getty Images
The fate of about 180,000 people trapped in North Darfur’s capital is still unknown, with the city cut off from all communications and fully controlled by paramilitary fighters who have reportedly killed thousands of its people already.
The main escape route from El Fasher is so dangerous that some survivors have crawled on their elbows through desert sands to avoid being spotted by militia fighters, according to workers from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), one of the biggest humanitarian agencies in the region.
Only about 6,000 people from El Fasher have reached the nearest humanitarian base in Tawila, about 50 kilometres to the south. A total of about 80,000 have fled the city, the United Nations says, but most were forced to the north or the east where aid is minimal.
“Every single person who arrives in Tawila has one or multiple members of their family that they cannot account for,” said Shashwat Saraf, an NRC relief worker in Tawila.
“Many of them are telling us they had to hide for days in the desert. Their condition, when they arrive, is shocking and disturbing.”
Signs of latest massacres in Darfur are visible in satellite imagery
Thousands in El Fasher are unable to leave, for fear of being killed or held hostage, Mr. Saraf told an online briefing on Thursday.
After a brutal 18-month siege of the city, El Fasher was captured on Oct. 26 by the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful militia that has been battling Sudan’s army since the war erupted in 2023. Since then, RSF soldiers have videotaped many of their own killings of large groups of civilians in the city, in videos that have now been verified by independent human-rights groups.
Sudan War Monitor, an independent research group, estimated this week that the RSF has killed at least 7,000 people, mainly civilians, in ethnically targeted massacres after capturing the city. It said its estimate was based on multiple sources in the RSF itself. More than 460 injured patients and other civilians in a main hospital were killed by the paramilitary force, according to reports cited by the World Health Organization.
Darfur, a region of western Sudan, has been an epicentre of atrocities throughout the war. In late 2023, the UN accused the RSF of killing 10,000 to 15,000 people in another Darfur city, El Geneina. The RSF, a largely Arab militia, has routinely targeted non-Arab ethnicities for its attacks.
During the siege, the only sporadic communications were on Starlink, a satellite internet service. But after the RSF captured the city, it shut down even this form of communication, leaving the city totally cut off from the world, relief workers say.
El Fasher had a population of more than a million before the siege. By the end, only about 260,000 people remained, the UN said.
With about 80,000 people fleeing, this leaves about 180,000 unaccounted for – in a city where humanitarian aid has been blocked for the past year. Markets are shut down, food and water supplies have been halted, and famine has been officially declared.
“Whether to stay or flee is a deadly gamble,” said Mathilde Vu, another NRC worker in Sudan.
“Starvation is being used as a weapon of war,” she told the online briefing. “Some who arrive in Tawila are so dehydrated that they can’t even talk. They’ve been drinking rainwater for the past month.”
Many children arriving in Tawila are badly traumatized and so malnourished that they might not survive, even with medical treatment, Ms. Vu said.
Opinion: In Sudan, a constant test of the tenacity of hope
Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, in a report based on satellite images, said it had found evidence of freshly dug mass graves in El Fasher. “Body disposal operations are under way,” it said this week. “This activity appears consistent with RSF conducting clean-up of their alleged mass atrocities.”
Across Sudan, the war has forced 12 million people from their homes, and 30 million need emergency aid, the UN says. Most estimates place the death toll in the hundreds of thousands.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has been working with several Middle East countries on a possible ceasefire deal for Sudan.
The RSF said on Thursday that it had agreed to a truce, but there was no sign that Sudan’s military would agree. It has been demanding an RSF withdrawal from urban areas as a precondition for any deal.
“Both sides still appear to believe they can win outright,” said Nicholas Coghlan, a former Canadian diplomat in Sudan. “The fighting will go on.”
The RSF, having just captured El Fasher, will reject the Sudanese army’s demand that it withdraw from cities as a precondition for any deal, he said.