Briefing | Disaster in Darfur

“Hell on earth”: satellite images document the siege of a Sudanese city

El-Fasher, until recently a place of refuge, is under attack

Image: The Darfur Network for Human Rights
Sudan-watchers have had their eyes on el-Fasher, the capital of the North Darfur region in the west of the country, for months. When a civil war began in April 2023 it briefly seemed as though it might be confined to the national capital, Khartoum. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a mutinous paramilitary group which hopes to defeat the official army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and seize control of the country, aimed to keep the battle far away from Darfur, where it has its roots. But the SAF fought back; soon Darfur was ablaze. Last year in el-Geneina, a city in West Darfur, the RSF committed what some human-rights groups have described as ethnic cleansing and possible genocide. Other cities with army garrisons also fell to the RSF. Yet for several months a shaky truce held in el-Fasher, the army’s last major holdout in Darfur. In May, the truce collapsed.

Read more of our coverage of Sudan’s war:

So far the battle for el-Fasher has proven difficult for the RSF. The city is home to the Zaghawa, a black African ethnic group with well-armed militias. Moreover, many of the Darfuri rebel movements which in the 2000s fought against both the army and the RSF’s progenitor, a nomadic Arab militia known as the Janjaweed, are stationed in el-Fasher. In April, several declared allegiance to the SAF, abandoning their previous neutrality and taking the fight to the RSF. In response, the paramilitary group and allied Arab militias imposed a deadly siege on el-Fasher, home to an estimated 2.8m civilians. A UN official, speaking to Al Jazeera, a broadcaster, described the city as “hell on earth”. The Economist has used satellite images and data showing strikes and building damage to build up a picture of what it is like in el-Fasher.

Since the start of the war the Centre for Information Resilience, an open-source research outfit, has used satellites to identify major war-related fires in Sudan (though it doesn’t capture all destruction).

Of those in the Darfur region, many were detected in and around el-Fasher.

A satellite analysis of thermal scarring (indicating burned buildings) by researchers at Yale shows how the siege unfolded. Attacks by the RSF intensified in April along the city’s eastern edges.

One resident at a displacement camp told The Economist that he saw up to 60 missiles a day in May.

By June 12th, the damage covered two square kilometres, much of it in residential areas.

The RSF’s focus on the city’s southern edges gives a hint of whom it is targeting.

One neighbourhood, Ashishat, is home to many Zaghawa; satellite imagery shows it scorched, which could be evidence of ethnically motivated targeting by the RSF.
Image: © 2024, Maxar USG-Plus

The Zaghawa also live in small villages surrounding the city, which have been attacked too—such as Ammar Jadid.

In March the village looked like this.

By early June it had been destroyed by fire.

There were around a dozen hospitals and other health facilities in el-Fasher before the siege, many of which have since been damaged or destroyed.

On June 23rd the RSF targeted the only dialysis centre in North Darfur. Minni Minnawi, the region’s governor, said on social media that it “sentenced all kidney failure patients to death”. A video of the attack circulated widely online.

Only the Saudi Hospital remains operational today, but it is overrun and barely functioning.

More than 1m people may have fled el-Fasher in recent months. In Zamzam, a nearby camp containing over 400,000 displaced people, conditions are dire.

Heavy rain has caused severe flooding—an area the size of 125 football pitches is under water. That increases the risk of diseases such as cholera, and food in the camp is scarce.

The battle for el-Fasher matters. First, it is ground zero for Sudan’s looming famine, largely because the RSF has prevented food and other supplies from entering the city. Tens of thousands of civilians fleeing from violence in other parts of Darfur have flocked to el-Fasher since the war began. (The city was already home to hundreds of thousands who had settled in the city during the previous Darfur war 20 years ago.) On August 1st the UN declared Zamzam camp the first place in the country to be suffering from famine. Earlier this year, Médecins Sans Frontières, a humanitarian organisation, estimated that a child there dies from lack of food or medical care every two hours. The RSF has made plain its intent to starve the city and its displacement camps into submission.
Second, because el-Fasher is strategically important. Seizing the city would not automatically mean all of the western region falling under the RSF’s control—some of central Darfur remains in the hands of a non-aligned rebel movement, for instance. Nor is it clear that the RSF is on the brink of a decisive victory there anyway. But the consequences would be dramatic, were it eventually to emerge on top. Crucially, it would make it easier for the RSF to capture the road to Chad, and one of the last stretches of Darfur’s international border not yet in its hands. Control of Sudan’s entire western frontier from Libya in the north all the way to South Sudan would enable the paramilitary group to bring in more arms, fuel and foreign fighters from across the Sahel. This could then help the RSF in its advance eastwards, ultimately towards the geopolitically vital city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Last, an RSF victory would mean a big loss of morale for the SAF, which is already struggling to mobilise enough troops to fight back effectively across much of the country. The army’s commanders, including Sudan's de facto ruler, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, continue to insist that they can achieve total victory—despite strong evidence to the contrary. On August 24th General Burhan vowed to “fight for 100 years” rather than sit for negotiations with the RSF. A final defeat in el-Fasher, the historic capital of the precolonial sultanate of Darfur, would further expose the SAF’s bluster—and make its leaders’ refusal to enter talks organised by America in Switzerland in August seem even more foolhardy.■
Sources: Centre for Information Resilience; Yale School of Public Health - Humanitarian Research Lab; Maxar; Sudan War Monitor; The Economist

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