CAIRO (AP) — The paramilitary force fighting since 2023 to take over Sudan has ousted the army from its last stronghold in the western Darfur region in fierce fighting, military officials and aid groups said Monday. Medical groups reported dozens of civilians killed in the violence.
The army’s withdrawal from the city of el-Fasher left over a quarter-million people — half of them children — under the control of the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and aid groups reported chaotic scenes Monday including battles between RSF and departing troops and their remaining allies. The U.N. accused the RSF of executing civilians.
The fall of el-Fasher to the RSF could herald another split of Sudan, more than a decade after South Sudan’s creation. The latest war started in April 2023 when tension between the military and RSF exploded into fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the northeastern African country.
Footage posted on social media since Sunday shows RSF fighters celebrating in and around the former army base in el-Fasher. According to one video, the paramilitary’s deputy commander, Abdulrahim Dagalo, calls on his fighters not to loot or target civilians.
Other footage shows RSF fighters shooting and beating people as they attempt to flee. Many were shown detained. RSF fighters were heard shouting “falangayat” at detainees — a racist term used to refer to African tribes in Darfur as slaves. Outraged Sudanese took to social media to denounce the attacks.
Military officials confirmed that troops had vacated the base on Sunday and retreated to another defense line under heavy RSF shelling and artillery. By late Monday, military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, said military officers decided to withdraw from the city entirely in hopes of sparing the civilian population from further violence.
The army retreated because of “the systemic destruction, and the systemic killing of civilians” by the RSF, he said in a televised speech, adding that the army hoped to “spare the citizens and the rest of the city from destruction.”
“We are determined to avenge what happened to our people in el-Fasher,” he said. “We, as the Sudanese people, will hold these criminals accountable.”
The UN cites atrocities in el-Fasher
Resistance Committees in el-Fasher, a grassroots group tracking the war, reported earlier Monday that fighting was raging around the army base’s airfield, as well as on the western side of the city. The group said the Sudanese troops had no visible air support in el-Fasher to try and fend off RSF attacks.
The U.N. Human Rights Office in a statement said RSF fighters reportedly carried out atrocities in el-Fasher, including “summary executions” of civilians trying to flee their attacks, “with indications of ethnic motivations for killings.”
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said the “risk of further large-scale, ethnically motivated violations and atrocities in el-Fasher is mounting by the day.”
Satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press showed the headquarters of the military’s 6th Division, with the roofs of multiple buildings damaged. The layout of the headquarters corresponded to details seen in footage released by the RSF, showing their fighters gathering around one bullet-scarred building, heralding their capture of the city.
Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab also confirmed through satellite imagery that the paramilitaries advanced as far as the 6th Division headquarters, with “significant evidence of close-quarter battle in the area.” The lab said in a statement Sunday it identified activities likely showing RSF taking prisoners in and around the airfield.
Thousands forced to flee homes
The Sudan Doctor Network, a medical group tracking the war, described the RSF attack as a “heinous massacre” and said dozens of people were killed.
RSF fighters rampaged through parts of el-Fasher, looting hospitals and other medical facilities and “destroying what remained of essential life-supporting and health care infrastructure,” the network said in a statement.
The Darfur Network for Human Rights said the RSF detained over 1,000 civilians, describing it as “systematic targeting of civilians, arbitrary detentions and potential acts amounting to war crimes.”
Among the detained was a local journalist, one of the few left in the city, according to the Sudanese Journalists’ Union. The group warned about potential “mass violations” in el-Fasher similar to what happened in another Darfur city, Geneina, in 2023 when RSF fighters killed hundreds.
The Doctors’ Union, the professional umbrella of Sudanese physicians, said RSF turned el-Fasher into a “brutal killing field,” calling its practices in Sudan a “barbaric policy that aims at terrorizing and annihilating civilians.” The group urged the international community to classify the RSF as a terrorist organization.
U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher expressed “deep alarm” at reports of civilian casualties and forced displacement in el-Fasher.
“Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped and terrified — shelled, starving and without access to food, health care or safety,” he said in a statement. He called for “safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access” to the population that remained.
Before Sunday’s attack, there were 260,000 civilians, half of them children, trapped in el-Fasher, according to the U.N. children’s agency.
The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration said more than 26,000 people had fled their homes as of Monday, retreating to rural areas and to the overwhelmed nearby town of Tawila.
Elsewhere, RSF fighters ran riot in the town of Bara in the central Kordofan region over the weekend, killing at least 47 people, including nine women, the Sudan Doctor Network said.
Alleged war crimes
The RSF grew out of the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias that brutalized the Sudanese during the Darfur conflict in 2000s.
The latest war has killed over 40,000 people and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with part of the country, including the el-Fasher area, plunged into famine. Over 14 million people have fled their homes.
The conflict has been marked by gross atrocities including ethnically motivated killings and rape, according to the U.N. and rights groups.
The International Criminal Court has said it was investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
