(source: https://www.economist.com/interactive/briefing/2024/08/29/satellite-images-siege-sudan-darfur-el-fasher)

Hallmarks of Genocide in El-Fasher and the world is watching yet another Genocide in real-time. Why?

The reports coming out of Sudan are no longer just warnings. They are post-mortems of a massacre.

The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan has just released a harrowing assessment of the fall of El-Fasher in October 2025. Their conclusion is chilling: the mass killings and atrocities committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are clear “indicators of a genocidal path”.

We are past the point of “preventative provisions.” We are now in the era of documented extermination.

The horror of El-Fasher: A “Ghost Town” of corpses

The report details a nightmare. After an 18-month siege designed to “squeeze the life out of the city,” the RSF took El-Fasher on October 26–27, 2025. What followed was not a military victory, but a systematic slaughter:

• Execution sites: El-Fasher University became one of the bloodiest sites, where a commander nicknamed the “Butcher of El-Fasher” reportedly boasted about losing count of the people he killed.
• Targeted sexual violence: The Mission documented widespread, systematic gang rape primarily targeting women and girls from non-Arab communities, particularly the Zaghawa. In some cases, women were raped in rooms filled with the corpses of their own families.
• Weaponized starvation: For over a year, the RSF cut off food, water, and medicine, forcing civilians to eat livestock fodder and animal skins just to survive.
• The “Berms” of Death: The RSF constructed 31km of earthen walls and trenches to trap civilians inside, executing those who tried to flee.

The intent is clear. The RSF fighters were heard saying: “We want to eliminate anything black from Darfur” and “If we had killed you in 2003, you would not have come to fight us in 2023”.

The question no one wants to answer, “What Are We waiting for”?

The United States government already formally declared that a genocide was occurring in Sudan as early as late 2023 and into 2024. Under international law, that declaration isn’t just a label, it is a trigger for the legal obligation of states to intervene and stop it.

Yet, here we are in 2026, reading reports of “Abu Lulu” shooting pregnant women and the RSF burning hospitals full of patients.

Is the silence bought?

We have to ask the hard questions about the “UAE angle.” The RSF’s campaign is fueled by advanced weaponry, drones, and communications systems that don’t appear out of thin air. The mission is already engaging with several states regarding their involvement in the conflict.

Is the international community’s paralysis tied to the UAE’s burgeoning “ironclad” diplomatic ties? Has the UAE’s strategic alignment with Israel, and by extension its protected status with the U.S., created a shield of impunity for their proxies in Sudan? Are we trading the lives of the Zaghawa and Fur people for regional “stability” and Abraham Accords optics?

The cost of impunity

The report is explicit: “These crimes have reached this level of atrocities because of impunity”. The RSF ignored every UN Security Council warning because they knew no one was coming to stop them.

While the diplomats in New York and D.C. offer “deep concern,” the Mission describes El-Fasher as a “ghost town” where the only way to reach the outside world is through Starlink — controlled and monitored by the RSF.

We cannot say we didn’t know

We are witnessing the “physical destruction of non-Arab communities”. The Fact-Finding Mission has called for:

• An immediate, enforced arms embargo.
• Unrestricted humanitarian access to the starving survivors.
• The International Criminal Court to expand its jurisdiction and for the establishment of a judicial mechanism to hold these “lions and heroes, as Hemedti calls them, accountable for their “catastrophe”.

If the world continues to wait, it isn’t because we lack the evidence. It’s because we lack the spine to challenge the patrons of this genocide.

How many more “ghost towns” do we need before the “obligation to prevent” becomes an actual action?

Source:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc6177-sudan-hallmarks-genocide-el-fasher-report-independent