In el-Fasher, the ghosts of Darfur’s darkest chapter have returned—not as memory, but as method. The systematic killings, ethnic targeting, and siege warfare now unfolding in Sudan’s western and southern regions are not isolated atrocities. They are the deliberate continuation of a genocidal playbook, refined over decades and executed with chilling precision by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
What began as a power struggle in April 2023 has metastasized into a campaign of ethnic cleansing. The RSF, descended from the Janjaweed militias that terrorized Darfur in the early 2000s, has encircled cities, severed lifelines, and turned famine into a weapon of war. In el-Fasher and Kadugli, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has declared formal famine—a designation reserved for the world’s most catastrophic humanitarian failures. This is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made emergency.
The siege of el-Fasher lasted 18 months. During that time, food, medicine, and communication were systematically cut off. Satellite imagery confirms massacre sites. Survivor testimonies speak of summary executions, sexual violence, and the forced separation of families. Women and children, already vulnerable, have become the primary victims of this engineered collapse. In Tawila, every child under five who arrived on a single day was acutely malnourished. Half were in severe condition.
This is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is a moral indictment of international paralysis. The UN, African Union, European Union, and UK have issued condemnations, but words do not feed the starving or shield the fleeing. Aid groups operate in near-impossible conditions, documenting the skeletal frames of children and the exhausted resilience of mothers who have walked for days in search of help. Their reports are the world’s only window into the suffering.
The RSF’s strategy is clear: encircle, starve, terrorize, erase. The IPC has called for an immediate ceasefire as the only measure capable of halting the spread of famine and saving lives. Yet the silence of decisive action remains deafening.
Sudan’s children are not collateral damage. They are the frontline victims of a war that weaponizes hunger and fear. The world must not look away. The time for statements has passed. Only coordinated humanitarian access, protection of civilians, and accountability for war crimes can begin to reverse the descent into hell.
Let us not wait for history to judge us. Let us act before it is too late.
