Politicsconflict & defenseWar Reports and Casualties
UN: Over 60,000 Flee Sudanese City Captured by RSF.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have seized control of El-Fasher, the last major city in the Darfur region not under their command, triggering a catastrophic and immediate humanitarian collapse as over 60,000 people have been forced to flee with nothing but the clothes on their backs, according to urgent reports from the United Nations. This isn't just another dateline in a long-running conflict; this is a city of nearly two million people being strangled, its markets, hospitals, and homes now scenes of terror under a force internationally accused of mass executions and crimes against humanity that echo the darkest chapters of this region's painful history.The fall of El-Fasher represents a devastating strategic and symbolic victory for the RSF, a group born from the Janjaweed militias of the early 2000s genocide, effectively cementing their dominion over the entire Darfur region and dealing a potentially fatal blow to the Sudanese Armed Forces' legitimacy and territorial control in a brutal civil war that has already displaced nearly ten million people and pushed the nation to the brink of famine. Eyewitness accounts, relayed through patchy satellite phones and encrypted messages, describe a city engulfed in chaos—random arrests, bodies in the streets, and the pervasive fear that has sent families scrambling into the vast, unforgiving desert with no clear destination, joining the largest internal displacement crisis in the world.This exodus is not just a statistic; it is a river of human suffering, primarily women and children, now exposed to scorching heat, militia violence, and a near-total absence of aid, with the World Food Programme warning that Sudan is facing a hunger catastrophe of unprecedented scale as the fighting deliberately targets humanitarian corridors and loots life-saving supplies. The international response, meanwhile, has been a predictable chorus of condemnation from New York and Geneva, yet these words have proven utterly hollow, failing to stop the flow of weapons, impose meaningful sanctions, or deploy a protective force that could actually shield civilians, leaving the people of Sudan feeling utterly abandoned by a global community that vowed 'Never Again' after the atrocities two decades ago.The capture of El-Fasher is not an endpoint but a terrifying new phase, potentially consolidating RSF control into a de facto statelet funded by gold mining and external backing, while the rival Sudanese army, humiliated and weakened, may resort to even more desperate measures, setting the stage for a protracted, fragmented conflict that could destabilize the entire Sahel region, drawing in neighbors like Chad, the Central African Republic, and Libya, and creating a permanent haven for transnational armed groups. The world is watching, yet again, as history repeats itself in Darfur with a chilling familiarity, and the question is no longer if there will be accountability, but how many more thousands must die or be displaced before the maps are redrawn and the world is forced to confront the grim new reality it allowed to be born from its inaction.
#Sudan
#RSF
#El-Fasher
#displacement
#human rights
#conflict
#featured