By Alexandra Sharp- Foreign Policy –
Sudan’s devastating two-year civil war is “spiraling out of control,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Tuesday, just days after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized the North Darfur city of El Fasher from the Sudanese military. Since fighting between the two sides began in April 2023, clashes have killed more than 40,000 people and displaced over 14 million others, making Sudan one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Now, experts worry that the RSF’s latest victory will only incite more catastrophe.
For the past 18 months, RSF fighters had besieged El Fasher. Then, late last month, the paramilitary group broke through the Sudanese army’s defenses, took control of the city, and launched what rights groups have characterized as a massacre of the city’s civilians. According to the Sudan Doctors Network, at least 1,500 civilians have been killed since the RSF’s takeover, including more than 450 people at a hospital.
“People are dying of malnutrition, disease, and violence. And we are hearing continued reports of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights,” Guterres said on Tuesday.
These reports include accusations of RSF-led summary executions and sexual assaults of civilians. Prosecutors with the International Criminal Court revealed on Monday that they had begun collecting evidence of mass killings and rapes after El Fasher’s fall. The RSF denies that it is committing atrocities.
During the siege, locals also reported that RSF troops targeted community kitchens with drone strikes, forcing people to eat animal feed and sometimes animal hides. Such actions underscore a recent report by the world’s leading hunger monitor, which confirmed on Monday that famine conditions were now present in El Fasher.
This is the first time that the U.N.-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has determined that the city of El Fasher is facing a famine; the IPC’s first famine determination during Sudan’s civil war was for the Zamzam displacement camp south of El Fasher in August 2024. Monday’s report also warned that three towns where people from El Fasher were fleeing to—Tawila, Mellit, and Tawisha—were also at risk of famine.
More than 21 million Sudanese currently face high levels of acute food insecurity, making Sudan the largest such crisis in the world. “It is clear that we need a cease-fire in Sudan,” Guterres said. “We need to stop this carnage that is absolutely intolerable.”
Halting the conflict remains difficult, though, as experts say outside parties continue to supply the warring sides with weapons. Meanwhile, foreign humanitarian assistance for Sudan has dried up. Just 28 percent of Sudan’s $4.16 billion humanitarian plan has been funded this year due to an unprecedented decline in aid expenditures by donor governments.
“El Fasher is not just a humanitarian emergency,” David Miliband, the head of the International Rescue Committee, wrote in Time magazine on Tuesday. “It is the face of the broader collapse of international diplomacy in the post-WWII era.”
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