By Musab al-Otaibi
Researcher, Rasanah IIIS
rian system. The RSF imposed a suffocating siege on the city, blocking supply routes and preventing the entry of food, water and medical aid. As a result, hospitals ran out of fuel and essential goods vanished. The UN estimates that tens of thousands of civilians now face death from hunger or disease, in what it describes as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in Sudan’s modern history. The tragedy, however, extends far beyond famine. Reports have documented widespread and systematic violations against civilians. Eyewitnesses and human rights organizations recount stories of executions, mass rapes and looting of both public and private property. Hospitals and medical centers were stormed and stripped of equipment, while medical staff were threatened or prevented from working. According to the World Health Organization, the last operational hospital in El-Fasher was seized by the RSF, leaving the wounded and sick without access to care. Testimonies from survivors speak of massacres in displacement camps, corpses left to rot in the streets and children dying of starvation or random shelling.
One UN report described the city as an “open-air prison of death,” an accurate depiction of a grim reality where people have lost the most basic of human rights: life and dignity. These documented abuses amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity under international humanitarian law, as they targeted civilians deliberately and systematically, beyond any legitimate military logic. Analysts note that such acts are not isolated incidents but part of a coordinated campaign of collective violence aimed at forcibly reshaping the city’s demographic composition. In El Fasher, violence has become a means of governance and terror a tool of social control. What is happening there is no longer a battle; it is a collective crime committed in broad daylight before the eyes of the world.
In the face of this humanitarian collapse, the international community has appeared paralyzed and hesitant. Repeated UN statements in September and October 2025 expressed concern over the situation in El Fasher and called for an immediate ceasefire and the opening of humanitarian corridors, but no tangible steps followed. No investigative missions were dispatched, no sanctions were imposed and no safe passages for civilians were established.
Condemnations became a hollow diplomatic routine, while the city continued to be bombarded daily and its neighborhoods erased one after another. The silence of the world cannot be justified as neutrality; it represents a moral failure to uphold the legal obligations enshrined in the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, which require intervention to protect civilians and hold perpetrators accountable. El Fasher today poses a moral test to the international order: Can the world allow tragedies like Rwanda and Srebrenica to be repeated in Africa — once again —with impunity? Darfur has become a harsh mirror reflecting a global conscience frozen by political inertia.
The implications of the battle for El Fasher extend far beyond the city itself. Its fall — or total encirclement — would signify the collapse of state authority in Darfur, transforming the region into a mosaic of fiefdoms ruled by the gun rather than by law. The ensuing security vacuum would trigger administrative disintegration, renewed tribal conflicts and an unprecedented displacement crisis. Economically, trade routes connecting western Sudan with the rest of the country would be disrupted, accelerating the currency collapse and the rise in food and fuel prices. Socially, the scale of violence and rights abuses will leave deep scars in the social fabric, making reconciliation or reconstruction an uphill task for years to come.
The tragedy of El Fasher is not merely a local catastrophe, it is an alarm bell for Sudan’s entire future. The ongoing humanitarian and political collapse in Darfur risks dismantling what remains of the state and entrenching a new reality of fragmentation and chaos.
El Fasher today encapsulates the entire tragedy of Sudan: a city exhausted by wars, besieged by hunger and abandoned to its fate amid global silence. What unfolds there is not just a military confrontation, but a comprehensive moral and humanitarian breakdown, exposing the erosion of law, compassion and accountability. El Fasher has laid bare the limits of power, the impotence of law and the silence of conscience, a stark reminder that silence in the face of atrocities breeds more suffering, not peace. The responsibility for saving El Fasher — and, by extension, Sudan — does not rest on one actor alone. It is a shared moral and legal duty across local, regional and international levels, beginning with ending the bloodshed, restoring security and establishing justice and accountability as foundations for any future political settlement. Without justice for the victims and humanity placed above political interests, there can be no genuine peace or lasting stability. Despite its deep wounds, El Fasher remains an open plea to the world: that the protection of human life must be the essence of all politics, and that the rebuilding of a new Sudan must begin with the preservation of its people.
Opinions in this article reflect the writer’s point of view, not necessarily the view of Rasanah
