When the war began in Sudan in 2023, I remember feeling a sharp pain as I recalled the optimism and faith Sudanese people had in their country after the fall of dictator Omar al- Bashir in 2019. At the time, I was one of the few in my circles speaking out about the atrocities I was witnessing on social media, committed by both the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). I kept shouting that things would only get worse, if we did not stand with Sudan. As was often the case, I was ignored. “It’s just another war in Africa,” I’m sure they thought.
Since then, I’ve watched Khartoum reduced to rubble, El Fasher held under a brutal siege, its people starved, and now, the genocide of El Fasher’s population. It horrifies me to say this, but what I witnessed on social media this week shows the RSF committing mass killings, ethnic cleansing, and genocide against non-Arab groups in El Fasher.
I spoke with Sudanese activist Hala El Shaygi, who shared her anguish at watching her people suffer from thousands of kilometres away: “Watching this from afar is beyond painful. You see the images and videos of people who could be your own relatives, and you realise that all you can do is watch, pray, and speak about it. It’s heartbreaking knowing that your people are suffering fear, starvation, loss, while you live a life that suddenly feels undeserved.”
For the past 18 months, the RSF built 56 km of barriers around El Fasher, blocking food, medicine, and aid from entering the town. This siege led to mass starvation, forcing people to eat animal feed, known as ambaz, to survive. Earlier this month, I reported that even ambaz was becoming too expensive for most Sudanese.
On Sunday, 26 October 2025, the RSF seized control of El Fasher, the SAF’s last stronghold in western Sudan, after the army struck a deal allowing its troops safe passage. The SAF then abandoned civilians to their fate. A bloodbath ensued, to the point that the blood could be seen from space. I watched video after video of RSF fighters executing, hunting, and burying innocent non-Arab men alive. Fathers, husbands, sons, whose families are likely still waiting for them, if they’re not dead themselves.
Horrifyingly, the RSF recorded themselves committing these crimes, cheering as they did so. As I write these words, tears stream down my face. I am heartbroken, but also furious. Furious that we live in a world where such crimes against humanity are carried out with impunity. Furious that the world stayed silent for so long. But most of all, furious that some lives are considered more valuable than others.
At least 2000 people were confirmed dead in just two days, though the true toll is believed to be much higher. After more than 500 days of starvation, 26 000 people fled El Fasher, and many remain unaccounted for. I saw footage of RSF gunmen shooting at fleeing families, and another of mercenaries burning alive those who tried to escape by car. The scene was a graveyard of charred vehicles, some still in flames. The laughter of the perpetrators still echoes in my mind, mocking, proud, and inhuman.
Only about 5000 people managed to reach the nearby town of Tawilah. Sadeia Alrasheed Ali Hamid, Director of Hope and Haven for Refugees Association, told Debrief Africa that those who escaped to Tawilah and Koma arrived severely malnourished, ill, and often injured.
Nearly a thousand children were among them. Hamid expressed deep concern that survivors of El Fasher require specialized nutrition to recover from prolonged famine, yet the already-overcrowded camps lack the resources to meet even basic needs.
“There were already more than half a million displaced people inside Tawilah, coming from other areas of conflict,” Hamid said. “That’s put immense pressure on the city’s resources. We’re already facing inflation, food scarcity, medical shortages, and finding freshwater resources. The IDP camps can’t cope with the influx of thousands more from El Fasher. It’s only going to get worse.”
What keeps playing on a loop in my mind is that none of this should be happening. Sudanese people shouldn’t be struggling to feed themselves in a land rich in natural resources and fertile soil. When I looked deeper, reports revealed that behind this suffering lies the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This isn’t a civil war. In fact, it’s a resource war. The UAE is funding and supplying the RSF’s genocide in El Fasher.
Political analyst Elbashir Idris told Debrief Africa that Sudan’s war is financed by its own gold, comparing it to “blood diamonds.”
“It is the UAE’s operations with the RSF that make this ethnic cleansing and genocide possible,” Idris explained. “They enable the looting and resource extraction from Sudan, allowing the UAE to gain a strategic foothold. Gold is one resource, but the most important is Sudan’s fertile land, capable of producing abundant food.”
The logistics of this operation are vast. According to Idris, the UAE uses an international network of mercenary militias and African airports to move supplies. Idris broke down the logistics for me.
“They use a site in Somalia called Bosaso, which is crucial for RSF operations. Planes carrying supplies fly from the UAE to Bosaso, then to Chad or Libya, circling around Sudan so they can allow the movement of supplies in to RSF controlled territories within Darfur or rather Darfur itself, now that they have captured all of it.”
With the fall of El Fasher, the RSF now holds all five state capitals in Darfur, reinforcing its illegal parallel government based in Nyala, South Darfur. This has deepened Sudan’seast–west political divide. Idris warned that capturing the SAF’s last stronghold completes the RSF’s plan:
“The Rapid Support Forces will begin partitioning Sudan to create their own de facto state. This will mark the third iteration of Sudan. You had the original Sudan, then South Sudan’s split in 2011, and now this new Sudan.”
How could we have allowed Sudan to reach this point?
We cannot say we didn’t know. The images are there, the testimonies are there, the dead bodies are there. The Sudanese people deserve peace, justice, and the right to exist without fear. They deserve a world that doesn’t trade their lives for gold or geopolitical power.
I will carry with me the faces of those I’ve seen on my screen, the mothers clutching starving children in fear, the men sitting in front of laughing mercenaries just before being executed.
But they deserve more than our grief; they deserve our action.
