By John Q. Hosedrinker 
El Fasher, Sudan, now resembles a massive crime scene, with mass graves and cremations sites evident following the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) seizure of the city. Satellite imagery reveals the city to be eerily empty, with markets overgrown and livestock removed. While the exact death toll is unknown, one briefing suggested at least 60,000 have been killed, with tens of thousands still unaccounted for, and international experts have declared the city to be in famine. Despite RSF pledges, humanitarian organizations and UN officials have been denied access to deliver aid or investigate atrocities, and the RSF is currently under investigation for war crimes regarding their attack on the Zamzam displacement camp.
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RSF massacres left Sudanese city ‘a slaughterhouse’, satellite images show.
It’s hard to fathom, but the situation in El Fasher, a city in Sudan, has become a scene of unimaginable horror. The RSF, the Rapid Support Forces, have turned this once-vibrant city into what can only be described as a slaughterhouse. This isn’t just an opinion; it’s a grim reality confirmed by satellite images, which paint a devastating picture of the massacres and destruction. The scale of the violence is so immense that human rights experts are now considering El Fasher as possibly the worst war crime of the entire Sudanese civil war, a conflict already characterized by mass atrocities.
The numbers are staggering. As many as 150,000 residents of El Fasher are missing since the city fell under RSF control. There’s a chilling lack of information about their whereabouts, which fuels the darkest of speculations about their fate. No one seems to know where tens of thousands of people disappeared to after the RSF’s brutal siege of the city, which lasted 500 days. Sources describe residents being detained in centres within the city, although the number currently detained is small. This grim reality mirrors other atrocities, drawing parallels to the Rwandan genocide. The international community, as one commentator put it, seems to be “watching” again, just like it did during previous human tragedies.
It’s not just El Fasher. The ongoing civil war in Sudan has been ripping the country apart for over 32 months. As many as 400,000 people have been killed, and almost 13 million have been displaced. This has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. There are also calls for an investigation into an RSF attack on the Zamzam displacement camp, south of El Fasher, which took place six months earlier. Amnesty International has documented how the RSF targeted civilians, took hostages, and destroyed places of worship and schools during the attack. The need for accountability is clear, and the world is failing to deliver.
The world seems to learn about these tragedies through satellite images after the damage is done. The conflicts leave scars long before anyone outside of the region even notices, leaving communities to suffer in silence. The international community’s lack of interest in Sudan is partly due to the country’s lack of geopolitical significance, a difficult reality that has left the country overlooked. What’s especially disheartening is the pattern of regret after each humanitarian crisis, followed by inaction in the face of the next one. It’s a brutal cycle.
Questions are being raised about the role of other countries in fuelling the conflict. Specifically, Britain’s export of arms to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is under scrutiny. The UAE is accused of supplying weapons to the RSF in Sudan, and this raises questions about Britain’s potential involvement in the violence. There are some concerns the UK government has been censoring warnings about the unfolding genocide in Sudan. The lack of action, the silence, and the complicity are all heartbreaking.
The scale of the destruction is difficult to fully comprehend, with a reported 60,000 deaths in just a few weeks. It’s a stark reminder that even though modern technology and satellites can reveal the horrors, the capacity to act upon that knowledge is often lacking. Though it is a small consolation that these atrocities can no longer be hidden, the world is failing to offer actual help.
The reality on the ground is stark. An estimated 60 million people worldwide are displaced, a number that would make them the 21st most populous country on the planet if they were recognized as one. Sudan’s strategic location, its gold and mineral resources, and its position near the Red Sea, which is key for shipping to the Suez Canal, have made the situation a volatile point of contention.
In conversations about the crisis, some people have injected their own political agendas, often shifting the focus away from the core issue: the suffering of the Sudanese people. It’s important to stay focused on the true horror that is unfolding. The need to hold the perpetrators accountable is paramount.