Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has stormed the North Darfur city of el-Fasher, prompting fears of widespread killings and abuses, hours after ceasefire negotiations in Washington collapsed.
There were hopes late last week that the US-sponsored talks could achieve some sort of breakthrough.
However, sources told that the UAE, which is the RSF’s most significant patron, refused to address the situation in el-Fasher, which has been under siege for over 500 days.
On Sunday morning, RSF fighters entered the city, where around 260,000 people have been trapped, seizing an army base and causing the defences to collapse.
The RSF claims it is in control of the city, describing its capture as a “decisive turning point”, after the paramilitaries had lost significant ground to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in recent months.
So far, the SAF and its allied Joint Forces have not commented on the developments, despite videos emerging that purport to show the RSF detaining and lashing people in and around el-Fasher.
One video, which media was not able to independently verify, appeared to show fighters forcing some detained people to praise RSF leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti, before opening fire on them.
Others, which MEE has also been unable to verify, seem to depict RSF fighters firing on fleeing civilians.
The RSF’s official media published footage of Abdul-Rahim Dagalo, Hemedti’s brother and second-in-command, addressing his toops from the Sixth Infantry base seized on Sunday.
Contact with people in el-Fasher has become very difficult, with people in the city only able to communicate to the outside through Starlink over recent months.
However, MEE was able to reach military sources, local fighters and activists in the city’s pro-democracy Popular Resistance Committee, who said they are still fighting and that el-Fasher’s defenders made a tactical retreat from the Sixth Infantry garrison.
One of the fighters told MEE that the RSF attacked on Sunday with more ferocity than in any previous assault.
“Serious fighting has erupted in el-Fasher in the past few days, with all kinds of weapons used – both sides using drones especially,” said the fighter, who is not being identified for security reasons.
“However, the RSF’s heavy firing allowed them to enter the city through its eastern side after crushing our front checkpoints, barricades and trenches.”
Another fighter told MEE: “The majority of our forces have withdrawn from the base to the neighbourhood of al-Daraga in the north of the city, where we are in good control at the moment, and the fighting is still ongoing.”
UAE controversy
The storming of el-Fasher came just hours after ceasefire talks in Washington collapsed.
The negotiations, which were sponsored by the Trump administration, included the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who alongside the US make up the Quad of states tasked with addressing the two-year Sudan war.
Also in Washington were SAF and RSF delegations, who refused to speak directly to each other.
Diplomatic sources told MEE that any discussions about el-Fasher were shut down by the UAE, which supplies the RSF with weapons, funds and mercenaries.
The RSF, which has been accused of genocide elsewhere in Darfur, has surrounded el-Fasher with mines, prevented any aid from reaching its starving civilians and carried out massacres in displacement camps outside the city.
“The Emiratis did not want to describe the situation as a siege and said both sides were equally responsible for crimes in el-Fasher,” one diplomatic source told MEE.
Two sources familiar with the talks said the SAF delegation rejected the UAE’s participation in the talks at all, seeing it as a belligerent.
After the talks collapsed, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mohi al-Din Salem, who was part of the SAF delegation, said: “If there is to be any dealing with the UAE, it will be as an enemy, not a mediator.”
On Sunday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on “all countries that are interfering in this war, and that are providing weapons to the parties to the war, to stop doing that”.
Diplomatic sources told MEE that Massad Boulos, Trump’s envoy for Arab and African affairs tasked with leading the negotiations, has been engaged in talks with Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the US-sanctioned head of the Sudanese army and government, since September.
“The two sides have put their conditions on the table. Massad has demanded SAF reduces the Islamist influence, stops bringing arms in from Iran and backs the Abraham Accords, as well as other measures like countering Russian and Chinese economic interests,” one of the diplomatic sources said.
“On the other hand, Burhan has asked for the US to stop the UAE’s involvement, dismantle the RSF, or at least see the paramilitaries integrated within SAF, and also lift US sanctions from Sudanese officials.”
Sudan’s war began in April 2023 when tensions over plans to fold the RSF into the regular military exploded into a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced 13 million others.
El-Fasher was the only SAF-held area in the vast region of Darfur, and its fall means Sudan has been divided in two, with the military-dominated government ruling the east from Port Sudan and the RSF’s rival administration in Nyala overseeing the west.
After the negotiations in Washington collapsed on Saturday, Boulos attempted to salvage something from the talks by posting photos on X of the Quad delegations and announcing a Joint Operational Committee “to strengthen coordination on urgent priorities”.
However, the next day, as details began to emerge of the assault on el-Fasher, he took to X again, this time calling on the RSF “to protect civilians and prevent further suffering”.
“The world is watching el-Fasher and the RSF’s actions with deep concern,” he said.
