Category Archives: Darfur

‘His role is to recruit’: the Sheffield-based propagandist for Sudan’s RSF militia

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Abdalmonim Alrabea has appeared in hundreds of videos in which he expresses support for paramilitary group accused of committing genocide

A British citizen based in Sheffield appeared in a TikTok live broadcast laughing along while a notorious fighter from Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces group boasted about participating in mass killings in the city of El Fasher.

The video, broadcast on 27 October, is just one of hundreds posted to social media in which 44-year-old Abdalmonim Alrabea expresses support for the RSF and the ethnically targeted atrocities it has committed in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

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Dire warnings over aid and hunger following RSF’s capture of Sudanese city

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Fears rise for displaced civilians as UN reports deteriorating situation and MSF warns of ‘staggering’ malnutrition

There are grave fears for civilians who survived the capture of El Fasher by a Sudanese paramilitary group last month, as the UN warned relief operations were on the brink of collapse and an aid group said malnutrition in displacement camps had reached “staggering” levels.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured El Fasher – the capital of North Darfur state and the last urban centre outside of its grasp in the wider Darfur region – on 26 October. Survivor accounts and video and satellite evidence suggest more than 1,500 people were killed in ethnically targeted massacres in the immediate aftermath.

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He told the world what was happening in El Fasher. Then they sought him out. How Sudan lost ‘a true hero of the war’

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For months, Mohamed Khamis Douda shared accounts of what life was like under siege. He was killed when RSF fighters finally took the Darfur city, raising fears activists and civil society figures are being hunted down

For months, militiamen on the perimeters of El Fasher have asked those few who managed to escape the besieged Sudanese city whether Mohamed Khamis Douda was still inside. They shared videos threatening to kill him, which, as they hoped, made their way to the activist.

Even as the hunger and fear of living under siege and bombardment made him desperate to leave, Douda remained inside El Fasher, constantly working to let the outside world know what was happening to the people there. Then, on Sunday 26 October, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces overran the city and it was too late. His friends and family have confirmed to the Guardian that Douda has been killed.

Monday 4 August

I awake each morning tired from the efforts of the previous day. Our first struggle is the merciless hunger and the second is the constant artillery shelling.

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Sudan’s RSF accused of ‘PR stunt’ after arresting fighters behind civilian killings

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Reports of indiscriminate violence and ethnic targeting in El Fasher have led to growing global outrage

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces claim to have arrested several of their fighters after outrage over the extent of killing in the city of El Fasher continues to build.

But the paramilitary group’s move has been greeted with scepticism from human rights campaigners and Sudanese people, who see it as an attempt to temper criticism over the violence.

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‘They killed civilians in their beds’: chaos and brutality reign after fall of El Fasher

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Thousands have fled the North Darfur city in terror with stories of the Rapid Support Forces attacking and killing civilians

Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was captured on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the attack began.

“They killed six wounded soldiers and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”

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Women and girls ‘not safe anywhere’ as Darfur suffers surge in sexual violence

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Médecins Sans Frontières report sparks calls for Sudan’s warring parties to be held to account for rapes and attacks

As Sudan’s Darfur region has been overrun by militias, women are facing the constant threat of sexual violence, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has reported.

The medical charity said in the South Darfur region alone its workers treated 659 sexual violence survivors between January and March this year, more than two-thirds of whom had been raped.

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Dossier of alleged Sudan war crimes handed to Metropolitan police

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Lawyers say evidence file outlines atrocities including torture and rape carried out by the Rapid Support Forces in the country’s brutal civil conflict

Scotland Yard has received a dossier of evidence documenting myriad alleged war crimes committed by a paramilitary group during the conflict in Sudan.

Lawyers have submitted a 142-page file of evidence to the war crimes unit of the Metropolitan police containing details of numerous atrocities perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

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Sudan’s news blackout stokes fear and confusion after refugee camp attacks

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Families of those displaced wait for news from Darfur amid reports of hundreds killed by paramilitary RSF

Sudan’s information blackout has left relatives of those in Sudan’s Zamzam refugee camp struggling for news of their safety after it was overrun by militiamen at the weekend.

As leaders across the globe prepared to meet for peace talks in London to pressure the backers of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army to agree a ceasefire, the RSF launched a deadly assault, seizing Zamzam after weeks of tightening its siege.

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ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants over atrocities in Darfur

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Karim Khan says civilians being targeted and communities destroyed in western region of Sudan

The prosecutor for the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for people accused of atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the US and others have determined that a paramilitary group and its allies have perpetrated genocide.

Karim Khan told the UN security council in New York: “Criminality is accelerating in Darfur. Civilians are being targeted, women and girls are subjected to sexual violence, and entire communities are left in destruction.

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Despair in Chad camps as violence and hunger in Sudan drive 25,000 across border in a week

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Warning of ‘lost generation’ in Adré and Farchana camps as Sudan’s civil war drives huge numbers across border

Refugees and aid agencies have warned of deteriorating conditions in overcrowded and severely underfunded camps in Chad, as intensifying violence and a hunger crisis in Sudan drive huge numbers across the border.

About 25,000 people – the vast majority women and children – crossed into eastern Chad in the first week of October, a record number for a single week in 2024. Chad, one of the world’s poorest countries, hosts 681,944 Sudanese refugees – the highest number globally.

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UN chief calls on Sudanese paramilitary leader to end siege of North Darfur city

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António Guterres ‘gravely alarmed’ by RSF assault on al-Fashir as EU foreign policy chief warns of another genocide

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, is “gravely alarmed” at reports of a full-scale assault on the Sudanese city of al-Fashir by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and has called on its leader to halt the attack immediately, according to Guterres’ spokesperson.

“It is unconscionable that the warring parties have repeatedly ignored calls for a cessation of hostilities,” Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement.

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Sudanese rebels appear to be posting self-incriminating videos of torture and arson on social media

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Footage that seems to show fighters glorifying abuse of prisoners with ‘little fear of consequences’ could be used in war crimes prosecutions

Footage of rebel fighters in Sudan appearing to glorify the burning of homes and the torture of prisoners could be used by international courts to pursue war crime prosecutions, observers have told the Guardian.

Fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, have been accused of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan for the past year as they try to take control of the country.

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Children ‘at death’s door’ as famine declared in Sudanese refugee camp

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UN-backed early warning network confirms people in the Darfur city of El Fasher are starving to death

Famine has been declared in a Sudanese displacement camp in the besieged city of El Fasher.

About 600,000 people are estimated to be living in camps just outside the capital of North Darfur.

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‘Smoking gun’ evidence points to UAE involvement in Sudan civil war

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Exclusive: Discovery of Emirati passports in wreckage suggest covert boots on the ground, despite Gulf state’s denials

Passports recovered from battlefields in Sudan suggest the United Arab Emirates is covertly putting boots on the ground in the country’s devastating civil war, according to leaked documents.

A 41-page document, sent to the UN security council and seen by the Guardian, contains images of Emirati passports allegedly found in Sudan and linked to soldiers of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the African nation’s notorious paramilitary.

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UK ‘tried to suppress criticism’ of alleged UAE role in arming Sudan’s RSF militia

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Exclusive UK accused of trying to head off condemnation of Gulf ally over alleged aid to forces accused of genocide in Darfur

UK government officials attempted to suppress criticism of the United Arab Emirates and its alleged role in supplying arms to a notorious militia waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan, sources have told the Guardian.

Claims that Foreign Office officials put pressure on African diplomats to avoid criticising the UAE over its alleged military support for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) will intensify scrutiny of the UK’s relationship with the Gulf state.

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EU-funded Egyptian forces ‘rounding up and deporting Sudanese refugees’

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Egypt forcibly returned 800 Sudanese detainees in first three months of this year, Amnesty International reports

The Egyptian authorities have used EU-funded security forces in a campaign of mass arrests and forcible deportations against refugees from the Sudan war, according to a human rights group report.

Amnesty International found Egypt “forcibly returned an estimated 800 Sudanese detainees between January and March 2024, who were all denied the possibility to claim asylum”.

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Sudan: last hospital in North Darfur capital closes after paramilitary attack

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MSF says hospital in El Fasher, last state capital not under Rapid Support Forces control, stormed and looted

The last functioning hospital in El Fasher, Darfur, in western Sudan, has been closed after an attack by paramilitaries trying to seize the key city, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said.

War has raged for more than a year between the regular military under the army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

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Tens of thousands flee camp in Sudan after attacks by RSF paramilitaries

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Concerns grow that Darfur is facing another genocide as Rapid Support Forces besiege city of El Fasher

Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in a displacement camp in the city of El Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur region after attacks by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, as concern grows that Darfur is facing another genocide.

The RSF has besieged the city for weeks, aiming to take the last major population centre in Darfur that it does not control. Hundreds of thousands are sheltering there after fleeing other cities taken by the group over the past year.

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Attacks on health workers in conflict zones at highest level ever – report

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More than 2,500 attacks in 2023, including medics killed and clinics bombed, in war zones such as Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine

Attacks on health workers, hospitals and clinics in conflict zones jumped 25% last year to their highest level on record, a new report has found.

While the increase was largely driven by new wars in Gaza and Sudan, continuing conflicts such as Ukraine and Myanmar also saw such attacks continue “at a relentless pace”, the Safeguarding Health in Conflict coalition said.

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Death, disease and despair as fighting closes in on besieged Sudanese city

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Darfur is on the brink of another disaster as fighting intensifies around El Fasher, the last city in the region not controlled by the Rapid Support Forces

At the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people on the northern fringe of El Fasher in North Darfur, about seven people a day arrive with injuries sustained from nearby clashes between fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and groups allied to the Sudanese army.

For months now the RSF have been besieging El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, trapping a million people in the last major population centre in Sudan’s vast Darfur region not under paramilitary control.

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