newly captured El-Fasher<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe RSF took the city, the last army holdout in the vast Darfur region of western Sudan, after more than 18 months of brutal siege, sparking fears of a return to the ethnically targeted atrocities of twenty years ago.<\/p>\n
Accusations of mass killings have mounted, with the World Health Organization condemning reports that 460 people were killed at a maternity hospital.<\/p>\n
Sudanese Arabs are the dominant ethnic group in the country, but the majority in Darfur are from non-Arab communities such as the Fur people.<\/p>\n
International powers have struggled for months to mediate an end to the fighting between the paramilitaries and the regular army, raging since April 2023.<\/p>\n
And on Thursday, Mohammad Hamdan Daglo vowed to reunify the country by force if necessary.<\/p>\n
“The liberation of El-Fasher is an opportunity for Sudanese unity, and we say: Sudanese unity through peace or through war,” he declared.<\/p>\n
Daglo’s paramilitaries now control most of western Sudan, Africa’s third largest country, while the regular army under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dominates the north, east and centre.<\/p>\n
While the army regained full control over the capital Khartoum in March, the RSF has set up a parallel administration in the southwestern city of Nyala.<\/p>\n
Analysts have warned that the country is now de facto partitioned and may prove very hard to piece back together.<\/p>\n
Hospital killings<\/p>\n
Daglo said in a speech shared on his Telegram channel on Wednesday that he was “sorry for the inhabitants of El-Fasher for the disaster that has befallen them” and that civilians were off limits.<\/p>\n
Since the takeover of El-Fasher by the RSF – descended from the Janjaweed militias accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago – the group has again been accused of carrying out atrocities against civilians, with graphic videos circulating on social media.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the World Health Organization said it was “appalled and deeply shocked” by reports that 460 patients and companions were killed at a maternity hospital in the city.<\/p>\n
The United Nations has warned of “ethnically motivated violations and atrocities” while the African Union condemned “escalating violence” and “alleged war crimes”.<\/p>\n
The Sudanese army-aligned government, meanwhile, has accused the RSF of killing more than 2,000 civilians and targeting mosques and Red Crescent aid workers in the city.<\/p>\n
![\"General](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4JYQF9S_cnn_L19jb21wb25lbnRzL2ltYWdlL2luc3RhbmNlcy9jbWhhcjRzNTAwMDA0M2I2bmRjN2Rlbm5p_L19jb21wb25lbnR.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nGeneral Mohammad Hamdan Daglo
\nPhoto: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah\/Reuters\/File via CNN Newsource\n<\/p>\n
Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab said late on Tuesday that satellite imagery showed “mass killing events” with “corroboration of alleged executions around Saudi Hospital and a previously unreported potential mass killing at an RSF detention site at the former Children’s Hospital in eastern El-Fasher”.<\/p>\n
It added that there was also ongoing “systematic killing” at one location outside the city.<\/p>\n
The lab had earlier warned of a “systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing” of non-Arab communities.<\/p>\n
Truce talks stalled<\/p>\n
El-Fasher had been the last holdout in Darfur of Burhan’s forces, and its fall has left the paramilitaries in control of a vast region covering a third of Sudan, with fighting now concentrated in the central Kordofan region.<\/p>\n
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Tuesday reported five Sudanese volunteers killed and three missing in Bara, a city in Kordofan captured by the RSF on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Since Sunday, more than 33,000 people have fled El-Fasher for the town of Tawila, about 70 kilometres (40 miles) to the west, which has already welcomed more than 650,000 displaced people, the UN says.<\/p>\n
Around 177,000 people remain in El-Fasher, which had a population of more than one million before the war, according to UN figures.<\/p>\n
Satellite-based communications with the city remain cut off — though not for the RSF, which controls the Starlink network there — as are access routes to the city despite calls for humanitarian corridors.<\/p>\n
AFP images from Tawila showed displaced people, some of them with bandages, carrying their belongings and setting up temporary shelters.<\/p>\n
Outside powers<\/p>\n
Sudan’s war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and triggered the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis, with both sides accused of widespread atrocities.<\/p>\n
The so-called Quad group — comprising the United States, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia — has held talks over several months towards securing a truce.<\/p>\n
But those talks have reached an impasse, an official close to the negotiations said, adding that their proposals are facing “continued obstructionism” from the army-aligned government.<\/p>\n
While diplomats have preached peace, outside powers, including Quad members, have been accused of interfering in the conflict.<\/p>\n
Multiple UN reports have accused the UAE of supplying the RSF with weapons and drones, which Abu Dhabi denies.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the army has drawn on support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey.<\/p>\n
Sudan has large and coveted gold deposits, exports of which are nearly all funnelled to the UAE, as well as huge amounts of arable land.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Displaced Sudanese who fled El-Fasher after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces, rest near the town…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-107959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}