Two days after the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur in Sudan, reports of mass atrocities and the possibility of a new genocide are raising international alarm. According to the Sudanese Coordination of Resistance Committees, an NGO, RSF fighters reportedly "cold-bloodedly executed" the sick and wounded at Al-Saoudi Hospital, killing them or leaving them without treatment.

Satellite images analyzed by the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health corroborated these reports, revealing the presence of a "mass of objects corresponding to the size of human bodies and a reddish discoloration of the soil" near the hospitals in El-Fasher.

Several sources, difficult to verify due to satellite communication blackouts imposed by the FSR, estimate that between 2,000 civilians have been massacred in the last three days. A woman who managed to escape testified that the FSR had "taken everything" and were conducting "military tests": "if anyone showed the slightest knowledge or connection with the army, they were immediately executed." These massacres are denounced by the HRL as a "systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing."

A conflict with disastrous humanitarian consequences

These atrocities mark a new escalation in the conflict that has been tearing Sudan apart since April 2023. This war pits the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the Revolutionary Security Forces (RSF), commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti. The conflict stems from a dispute over the integration of RSF militias into the national army.

Sudan, a resource-rich country, is currently facing the world's worst humanitarian and displacement crisis, according to the IRC. Of its 51 million inhabitants, approximately 14 million have been displaced. The United Nations estimates that the death toll is between 20,000 and 150,000, with famine and epidemics such as cholera raging.

After the fall of El-Fasher, the territorial control of the FSR extended over most of Darfur and part of the South, while the FAS retained Khartoum, the North and the Center.

The FSR and the legacy of genocide

International humanitarian organizations are calling on the FSR to open humanitarian corridors for the approximately 177,000 civilians still trapped in the city.

Hager Ali, a researcher at the German GIGA Institute for Global and Regional Studies, explains the FSR's strategy as a desire "to humiliate the FAS by attacking civilians" and to "terrorize civilian populations in the areas they control."

Despite accusations of human rights violations against both sides, the FSR is particularly targeted. Shayna Lewis, a Sudan specialist, asserts that their "genocidal policies are systematic," emphasizing that the murder of patients and medical personnel is their "trademark."

These fears are all the more acute given that the FSR originated from the Janjaweed militias, responsible for the extreme violence and ethnically motivated massacres in Darfur between 2003 and 2005. At the time, under the regime of Omar al-Bashir, these Arab militias massacred approximately 300,000 civilians considered to be African. The ICC prosecutor, the UN, and several states at the time classified these acts as genocide.

International diplomacy has failed

The Sudan Founding Alliance (TASIS), created by the FSR and other armed groups to establish a "government of peace and unity" in the areas under their control, rejected the accusations, calling them fabrications by "Islamic movement media." According to Sudanese researcher Leena Badri, this is an attempt to "politically legitimize their parallel governance structures."

The continuation of the conflict is heavily influenced by the external support of the belligerents. Observers indicate that the FSR (Rapid Security Forces) are receiving arms shipments from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) via Chad, a claim the UAE denies. The FAS (Senegalese Armed Forces), for their part, are supported by Egypt and Qatar.

Darfur's strategic importance and natural resources, particularly gold, are crucial for the RSF, allowing them to circumvent sanctions and purchase weapons. Researcher Hager Ali concludes that to ensure the transport of these weapons, the RSF "seeks total control over the civilian population of Darfur."