A week after paramilitaries seized control of el-Fasher following an 18-month siege, Sudan’s devastated North Darfur capital has gone dark—and what little information escaping suggests a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding beyond the world’s ability to witness or stop it.
Tens of thousands remain trapped inside the city after the Rapid Support Forces overran the last major urban stronghold in Darfur, ending a brutal starvation campaign with what survivors describe as mass executions, torture and widespread sexual violence. Thousands more civilians are unaccounted for after attempting to flee, their fate unknown as RSF checkpoints and patrols control roads leading out.
“There is a complete blackout in terms of information coming out of el-Fasher,” Caroline Bouvard, Sudan country director for Solidarités International, told Al Jazeera from Tawila, a town 50 kilometers away where a fraction of escapees have arrived. “We keep hearing feedback that people are stuck on the roads and in different villages that are unfortunately still inaccessible due to security reasons.”
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Aid organizations estimate up to 15,000 people are stranded in areas surrounding el-Fasher, unable to move safely through RSF-controlled territory. Only a few hundred have trickled into Tawila recently—disturbingly small numbers given the city’s pre-siege population. Those who survived the journey report harrowing scenes: forced abductions with ransom demands, beatings at checkpoints, and witnessing killings they believe targeted specific ethnic groups.
Many displaced residents have been pushed toward the al-Dabbah refugee camp in Northern State, where conditions were already dire before fresh arrivals began pouring in. Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from the camp, said thousands now sleep exposed without adequate food, water, medication or shelter—and thousands more are expected as people continue fleeing RSF violence.
International mediators—the United States, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt—have condemned the killings and demanded humanitarian access, but their roadmap for ceasefire has produced nothing. “The RSF must stop engaging in retribution and ethnic violence; the tragedy in El Geneina must not be repeated,” the State Department warned Saturday, referencing the 2023 Masalit massacres in West Darfur’s capital.
Republican Senator Jim Risch has called for designating the RSF a foreign terrorist organization, but concrete action remains elusive. Meanwhile, Sudan’s civil war—which erupted in April 2023 when military-RSF tensions exploded—has killed tens of thousands and displaced over 12 million with no end visible.
Aid agencies plead for access while el-Fasher’s fate remains obscured by violence and information blackout, leaving the international community with fragmentary horror stories and no clear path to intervention.