The fall of el-Fasher – the last major city in Darfur that had been held by Sudanese state forces – marks both a military defeat and a profound human tragedy.
For months, the city symbolised fragile endurance; it was a place where displaced people sought safety, and the idea of a unified Sudan still flickered. Its capture by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) extinguishes that hope, leaving civilians trapped amid hunger, fear and uncertainty.
El-Fasher’s fall is more than a local event; it reflects the unravelling of Sudan itself, where the lines between war and survival, and victim and witness, are disappearing. What has happened in Darfur may soon define the fate of the entire country.
El-Fasher’s fall followed a prolonged siege and repeated attacks on displacement camps and civilian infrastructure. The UN and human rights groups have reported mass displacement, starvation and extrajudicial killings as people fled. This has caused a large influx of displaced people into neighbouring towns and across borders, overwhelming local resources and aid corridors. The risks are especially acute for children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups.
A massacre at the Saudi Hospital in el-Fasher, which reportedly killed 460 people, collapsed the city’s last major medical facility. This has made coordinating medical services and evacuations nearly impossible.
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The immediate result is a dramatic increase in humanitarian needs. Aid delivery in Darfur was already constrained by insecurity and bureaucratic barriers. With el-Fasher under RSF control, access will become even more precarious.
When besieged cities fall, the protection gap widens: supplies, medical care and evacuations become harder to coordinate and more likely to be blocked. This raises the threat of localised famine, disease outbreaks, and long-term malnutrition for a generation of children.
De facto partition
Darfur has a long history of communal violence, dating back to the early 2000s. The RSF’s origins in Janjaweed networks, and their recently documented actions, have triggered credible fears of targeted reprisals against communities perceived as aligned with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
Recent reports describe the forced displacement of indigenous communities, house-to-house searches, and summary executions – patterns that human rights experts say could constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. The fall of el-Fasher thus increases the probability of a mass-atrocity cycle – unless immediate protection and accountability measures are implemented.
With the capture of el-Fasher, the RSF now controls all of Darfur’s regional capitals. This gives them territorial depth, direct access to trans-Saharan trade routes, and the ability to impose blockades and extract resources.
The future of Sudan depends on whether the world – and Sudan’s own leaders – can recognise that with every city that falls, a part of the nation’s soul is lost
Analysts warn this creates the conditions for a de facto partition: RSF control in the west and south, versus SAF control in parts of the centre and east.
Such a split would be unstable. It could lead to the institutionalisation of secession through a parallel government based in Nyala, with its own security structures and competing claims to legitimacy – making a nationwide peace settlement exceedingly difficult. A partition would also encourage competing foreign backers to entrench their influence, exacerbating proxy conflicts.
This strategic shift weakens the incentive for mediated national peace talks. When an armed group can convert battlefield gains into governance control, it feels less pressure to compromise. Instead of one negotiation for a national settlement, Sudan could face multiple, separate talks – or none at all – driven by local power struggles, rather than a shared national vision.
Although Sudan’s security and defence council convened this week to discuss a US-sponsored ceasefire initiative, the session concluded without the disclosure of any specifics.
In a contradictory statement, the Defence minister expressed gratitude for American diplomatic efforts while reaffirming the government’s commitment to continue the war against RSF. He emphasized ongoing “preparations for the Sudanese people’s battle”, framing the nation’s military readiness as a “legitimate national right.”
Unless the warring parties abandon a military approach, the RSF will likely advance towards Kordofan and central Sudan, triggering a protracted war of attrition.
Darfur sits at the crossroads of several fragile borders. RSF control along the borders with Libya and Chad risks the cross-border movement of fighters, weapons and civilians. Refugee flows strain host communities and could radicalise grievances in border regions.
Neighbouring states may respond by hardening their security postures or backing local proxies – a pattern that has historically deepened instability in the Sahel and Horn of Africa. The RSF’s consolidation in Darfur thus carries a nonlinear risk: a national setback could quickly become a regional security crisis, unless neighbouring states and regional organisations coordinate their responses.
Patterns of predation
All eyes are now on Cairo to lead a peace initiative, not only as a powerful member of the so-called Quad – comprising the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE – but also as a neighbour whose southern border security is at risk. But the secrecy of current negotiations, which exclude civilian forces, could produce an agreement that formalises Sudan’s division.
From Cairo, US adviser Massad Boulos recently confirmed that the warring parties had agreed to a three-month humanitarian truce, though no pertinent official statements have been made within Sudan.
As the RSF expands its territorial control, parallel administrative structures are emerging: checkpoints, informal taxation, and security arrangements that displace civilian institutions. This erodes the state’s monopoly on coercion and service provision, fracturing governance.
Local chiefs, militias and opportunistic entrepreneurs fill the vacuum, often entrenching patterns of predation that are harder to reverse than battlefield victories. Over time, such localised armed rule deepens corruption, weakens the rule of law, and raises the cost of post-conflict reconstruction.
The SAF’s loss of el-Fasher is both material – losing a strategic base – and symbolic, through losing control in Darfur. Politically, it strengthens the RSF’s bargaining power in national-level talks, and weakens the leverage of actors pushing for a unified civilian transition.
This shift in power dynamics impacts the ongoing efforts of the Quad to forge peace, positioning the RSF to demand more favourable power-sharing and wealth-sharing terms. Having captured more than a third of Sudan’s geographical space, rich in resources and strategically located, the RSF’s negotiating position is now more formidable than ever.
The SAF’s armed allies, such as the Darfur joint forces led by Gibril Ibrahim, Minni Minnawi and Mustafa Tambour, also risk losing bargaining power as their military defeat in Darfur undermines their political influence.
The result is more complex peace talks, with the RSF expecting greater gains.
International approach
The fall of el-Fasher tests international tools like sanctions, diplomatic isolation, mediation and justice mechanisms. While sanctions can signal disapproval, they have limited effect if the RSF consolidates local control and retains external patrons.
Humanitarian access must be prioritised, but it cannot be a substitute for political solutions or accountability. The International Criminal Court and UN mechanisms can document abuses and pursue justice, but prosecutions are slow and require political will, along with evidence that is difficult to gather in active conflict zones.
A coordinated international approach would combine immediate protection – including secured humanitarian access and safe evacuation corridors – with credible accountability signals, such as targeted sanctions and asset freezes, alongside concerted regional diplomacy to prevent spillover violence. The window for such coordination is short; the longer the new reality on the ground endures, the harder it becomes to influence behaviour.
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Beyond the immediate crisis, the fall of el-Fasher risks long-term social fragmentation. Years of displacement and trauma erode intercommunal trust, weaken traditional mediation mechanisms, and intensify competition over scarce land and resources.
The costs of reconstruction – to restore basic services, repair social cohesion, and demobilise armed groups – will be enormous, and likely beyond Sudan’s capacity without sustained international support. Failure to invest in social repair risks cycles of re-mobilisation and intergenerational grievances that could outlast the current conflict.
A responsible international policy should prioritise civilian protection and humanitarian corridors. It must also push for impartial investigations and accountability by collecting evidence of abuses, and coordinating sanctions against commanders responsible for violations.
Such a policy should engage the African Union, the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development, and the UN to secure borders and manage refugee flows, and to sustain longer-term reconstruction and reconciliation by allocating multi-year funds to rebuild services and support community-level initiatives.
The loss of el-Fasher closes one chapter of Sudan’s tragedy and opens a darker one. It deepens the country’s fragmentation, tests the limits of humanitarian endurance, and highlights the silence of a world that has watched for too long. Yet within that silence, Sudanese voices still insist on life, dignity and peace.
If el-Fasher’s fall is to mean anything, it must become a turning point not for conquest, but for conscience. The future of Sudan depends on whether the world – and Sudan’s own leaders – can recognise that with every city that falls, a part of the nation’s soul is lost.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
