The bloody landscape of el-Fasher, the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) last stronghold in the Darfur region, is emblematic of the complexity of Sudan’s 2½-year-old civil war.
Rapid Support Forces (RSF) drones and artillery shells have pulverized the city, the capital of North Darfur, and its more than 250,000 residents during October attacks, leaving men, women and children dead and their homes and other buildings reduced to rubble.
Because of the danger from drone attacks and sniper fire, “We can only bury people at night, or very early in the morning,” Mohyaldeen Abdallah, a local journalist, told Reuters. “It’s become normal for us.”
“They don’t distinguish between civilians and soldiers; if you’re human they fire at you,” Khadiga Musa, head of North Darfur’s health ministry, told Reuters by phone from the embattled city.
Seven months after the national forces’ SAF, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, regained control of Khartoum, the RSF, led by the general known as Hemedti, were trying to fully dislodge al-Burhan’s forces from all of Darfur, a longtime RSF stronghold. October 10 and 11 drone attacks on an el-Fasher center for the displaced killed 57 people. Of those, 17 were children, including three babies, Reuters reported.
Bodies lay draped in blankets and prayer rugs as remaining residents dug bunkers and hid during the day, India’s News9 Live reported. Local activists say an average of 30 people die each day from violence, hunger and disease.
The fighting continues even as a coalition of four nations was pushing a peace plan to stop the bloodshed.
Hemedti’s forces have trapped people in el-Fasher by piling up sand berms 3 meters high to block off the city in the east, west and north. These berms have turned the city into a “kill box,” according to the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, which monitors North Darfur using satellites. The RSF checkpoints mean people are trapped in the city, the BBC reported. Those trying to leave are subjected to extortion, detention, disappearances and sexual violence.
With the SAF retaking the capital, it might be logical to credit a swing in momentum to al-Burhan’s forces. However, researcher Michael Jones, writing in November 2024 for the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, stopped short of calling al-Burhan’s gains a turning point in the conflict.
Despite al-Burhan’s advances and Hemedti being “overstretched, attritted and reeling from the loss of senior commanders,” Jones questioned the SAF’s capability to prosecute an offensive in Darfur.
“SAF has consistently underperformed throughout the crisis; its air fleet and ‘Soviet armour’ have been gradually worn down; the general staff is divided; and any gains come with trade-offs,” Jones wrote. As the SAF advanced in Khartoum, it scaled back its military presence across el-Fasher, a condition the RSF is exploiting in 2025.
Al-Burhan and his associates also are unpopular. Although the RSF is known for its atrocities, both sides are attacking civilians, recruiting children and causing starvation, Jones wrote.
Cameron Hudson, senior fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Africa Program, wrote in a March 24, 2025, report that in addition to SAF advances in retaking capital territory, the RSF has not kept pace with SAF recruiting and has failed to “maintain supply lines across the vast areas of the country previously under its control.”
Even so, he predicted that the RSF would seek to complete its siege of el-Fasher, which is ongoing. “Under a scenario where the city falls to the RSF, the result would be a de facto and seemingly de jure bifurcation of the country,” Hudson wrote. “Very soon, Sudan could face a Libya-like scenario with two separate governments vying for recognition and credibility based on their authority over different regions.”
Neither side, he wrote, has expressed an interest in negotiating an end to the war. Meanwhile, a peace proposal backed by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States is on the table. It calls for a three-month humanitarian truce to precede a permanent ceasefire. Then a civilian-led government would be set up during a nine-month transitional period, according to Al Jazeera.
The four countries, known as the “Quad,” met separately with the warring factions to push the peace plan October 24 in Washington, D.C. As talks continue, however, so does devastation in Sudan.
Nearly 25 million people suffer acute food insecurity, and 637,000 of those face devastating hunger levels, Al Jazeera reports. Nearly 13 million are displaced.
Kholood Khair, founder and director of Confluence Advisory, a think tank formerly based in Khartoum, summed up conditions in Sudan for Al Jazeera: “It’s the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. It’s the largest displacement crisis in the world. It’s the largest hunger crisis in the world. And it’s the largest protection crisis in the world. All at once.”