The latest chapter in Sudan’s civil war has captured the world’s attention. To understand what’s happening now it helps to understand some of the country’s history.<\/p>\n
Monitoring of the war is largely left to aid groups still operating on the ground, videos posted online, and satellite images capturing developments from space.<\/p>\n
On October 27, around the time when El-Fasher was taken by the RSF, war crime investigators at the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, noticed a series of “reddish ground discolouration” and “light objects”.<\/p>\n
Those discolourations and objects are blood and bodies, according to executive director for the lab Nathanial Raymond.<\/p>\n
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Blood seen from satellite imagery. (Supplied: Airbus)<\/p>\n
“They did not appear in the baseline imagery from a couple days before. There was no presence of objects between 1.3 to 2 metres in length and that range on the object is critical because a human body lying horizontally in 30-centimetre satellite imagery will measure in terms of pixels between 1.3 to a full two metres,” Mr Raymond says.<\/p>\n
“The discolouration. It’s usually about a half-a-metre in size and it occurs when the bodies first appear and that’s the blood discolouration. We mathematically measure it and it comes back mathematically as true red.”<\/p>\n
The analysis says vehicles can also be seen blocking roads in western El-Fasher.<\/p>\n
At a university building on October 28 \u2014 the scene repeats.<\/p>\n
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“Objects” identyfied as bodies at the university. (Supplied: Airbus)<\/p>\n
ABC NEWS Verify has geolocated a graphic video showing bodies strewn on the ground floor and an execution, to inside the main building of the university.<\/p>\n
Nearby, at the Saudi Hospital \u2014 those “objects” are again seen in imagery from October 28.<\/p>\n
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Objects seen at Al Saudi Hospital. (Supplied: Airbus)<\/p>\n
On the outskirts of town \u2014 at an embankment constructed by the RSF to encircle the city \u2014 satellite imagery shows burnt out vehicles and bodies, from October 31.<\/p>\n
The aftermath of this carnage was filmed by the RSF, and posted online to an RSF-aligned Telegram account.<\/p>\n
ABC NEWS Verify geolocated the videos to the same location, matching the angles of the burnt-out cars.<\/p>\n
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Burnt out cars outside of El Fasher. (Supplied: Vantor)<\/p>\n
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A video posted by a RSF-aligned Telegram account shows the aftermath on the outskirts of El-Fasher. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“What shocked me is how little the world has cared,” Mr Raymond tells 7.30.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, I’ve seen this many, many times before, including in Sudan \u2014 but here’s what’s different \u2014 the scale. We’re talking a quarter of a million people potentially, at least 200,000 in the kill box.”‘This is very horrific to watch’<\/p>\n
For families of El-Fasher residents in Australia learning the fate of loved ones means watching gruesome and heartbreaking propaganda videos of massacres posted by the RSF or RSF-aligned social media accounts.<\/p>\n
Musab Hassan has been scouring the RSF accounts in the hopes of catching a glimpse of his family and friends.<\/p>\n
“This is very horrific to watch, especially on your own people. And you know that you have people there, whether they’re facing the same fate or they are already being killed, you don’t know,” Mr Hassan says.<\/p>\n
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Musab Hassan is a member of the Sudanese Zaghawa community. (ABC NEWS Verify\/Jonathan Hair)<\/p>\n
Mr Hassan is the Sydney leader of the Zaghawa community \u2014 one of the indigenous non-Arab tribes which has been persecuted by the RSF.<\/p>\n
“I myself witnessed a genocide when I was a child, but what I’m seeing now from five or six thousand miles away is horrific, something beyond my mental health’s bearing.”<\/p>\n
He says his cousin Abdelazziz had been in El-Fasher as an aid worker on October 26 but was kidnapped by the RSF and held for ransom.<\/p>\n
The last video Mr Hassan has of Abdelazziz is a tour of his office after it was shelled by the RSF, days before the incursion.<\/p>\n
“Hundreds of our extended family members, they were inside El-Fasher when the attack happened. Now we have nothing, we have no information about their fate,” Mr Hassan says.<\/p>\n
After the kidnapping, he says someone claiming to be an RSF soldier demanded six million Sudanese pounds ($15,000) for Abdelazziz’s release. Mr Hassan says his family, based in Egypt, paid immediately.<\/p>\n
“This money was transferred straight away, in a matter of hours. They said ‘if you don’t send, you have to forget about them’ \u2026 and then everything cut off again. They disappeared.”<\/p>\n
Families kept in the dark<\/p>\n
Sudanese community member and humanitarian specialist, Sara Sinada, says it is almost impossible for citizens to share what is happening inside Sudan.<\/p>\n
“The biggest fear was for RSF to get anyone’s phones and find a photo or a text message that documents what’s happening,” Ms Sinada says.<\/p>\n
“Because what happens immediately is the person is killed.<\/p>\n
“And this actually happened to my cousin who was sadly abducted by RSF over nothing but a voice note that he sent on a WhatsApp group criticising RSF.”<\/p>\n
She says this threat to life has meant information from sources not aligned to the RSF is rare.<\/p>\n
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Humanitarian specialist, Sara Sinada says information coming from Sudan is often from the RSF. (7.30\/Daniel Fermer)<\/p>\n
“[It’s a] really sad situation to say the least, but it does reflect the amount of danger that anyone within Sudan is in if they even attempt to report this to a group of friends, or retell what’s happening to family,” she says.<\/p>\n
“That just goes to say that it’s huge under-reporting and the amount of things that we see coming out of Sudan are mainly taken by soldiers and RSF members themselves.”<\/p>\n
For Mr Hassan, being kept in the dark about his family has been the hardest thing to grasp.<\/p>\n
“We know that we experience losing our loved ones, but the [more] painful thing than losing loved ones \u2026 is the uncertainty of your loved ones, whether he’s alive or she’s dead or she is a hostage,” he says.<\/p>\n
“The RSF is not like any other criminal organisation. They do the crime, they document it themselves, and they send it to you right away to your screen.”<\/p>\n
* ABC NEWS Verify has chosen to change Abdullah’s name for his safety<\/p>\n
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