Urgent Call for Action to Prevent a Looming Genocide in El Fasher – North Darfur

Amgad Farid Altaib

Since May 10, 2024, the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, has been under a violent attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) aiming to seize the last state capital in Darfur region still under the control of the Sudanese government.

The ongoing attack on El Fasher, which shelters over 2 million residents and IDPs from various other Darfur states, has witnessed numerous atrocities and crimes against civilians. These include the bombing of residential areas and hospitals, leading to the destruction of the city’s five main hospitals and its only dialysis center, a catastrophic situation described as by Claire Nicolette, Head of Emergency Response at Médecins Sans Frontières. The RSF also bombed the Zamzam IDP camp, located near El Fasher and home to over half a million people, multiple times, destroying a nearby humanitarian aid warehouse, resulting in the loss of food and medical supplies, as well as the only ambulance serving the camp. UN reports have confirmed severe famine situation in the Zamzam camp since early August.

RSF attacks on civilians in El Fasher and other parts of Sudan continued even while their negotiating delegation was in Switzerland with international mediators (The ALPS Group), without reducing the intensity and violence of these attacks. On June 13, 2024, the UN Security Council issued Resolution 2736, demanding the RSF lift their siege of El Fasher, de-escalate the situation in and around the city, and withdraw all fighters threatening the safety and security of civilians, which the RSF ignored, demonstrating their determination to continue committing these crimes.

The fall of El Fasher to the RSF threatens to repeat the ethnic cleansing that occurred in Geneina, West Darfur, in May last year, where the RSF killed large numbers of the Masalit community, targeting them ethnically and forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands. We warn of an imminent genocide by the RSF against local communities in North Darfur if they succeed in taking control of El Fasher.

In light of the above,
We call on the international community to urgently intervene and pressure the RSF and their allies to stop their ongoing attack on El Fasher and to urge the countries supporting the RSF to pressure them to prevent the imminent massacre.
We urge the ALPS group that was formed in Switzerland in 24 of August to demonstrate its seriousness in fulfilling its self-assigned responsibilities and leverage the collective and individual influence of its members to avert the impending genocide.

We also request the UN Secretary-General to use his powers under Article 99 of the UN Charter to convene the Security Council urgently to take practical measures to enforce Resolution 2736.
The world cannot and should not remain a helpless, silent spectator while witnessing another genocide about to occur in North Darfur.

*Fikra for Studies and Development