Bloodbath feared as rebels trap thousands in Sudan city. How did we get here and what might come next?

By Nimi Princewill, CNN

(CNN) — Sudanese rebels have driven government forces from El Fasher, the last stronghold of the country’s regime in the western Darfur region, amid a brutal struggle for territory that has led to alleged genocide and contributed to one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises.

For more than a year, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has besieged El Fasher, its final major barrier to controlling Darfur. The RSF aims to establish a parallel government in the region. It has been battling the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for power since April 2023.

Estimates suggest that more than 150,000 people have died due to the conflict, while an additional 14 million have been displaced from their homes.

Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is also the de facto head of state, acknowledged the rebels’ capture of El Fasher. In a broadcast on Monday, he stated that his troops retreated from the city due to the destruction and systematic killing of civilians.

Justin Lynch, a Sudan researcher and managing director of Conflict Insights Group, a data analytics and conflict monitoring organization, told CNN that the RSF’s capture of El Fasher marks “the beginning of what we fear to be a massacre of civilians.”

According to Tom Fletcher, the United Nations humanitarian chief, hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped in El Fasher, lacking food and health care. He reported that escape routes have been blocked amid “intense shelling and ground assaults” that “have engulfed the city.”

The RSF has claimed it is committed to protecting civilians in El Fasher and providing safe corridors for those seeking to leave.

However, the UN Human Rights Office said it had received “multiple, alarming reports” of the RSF committing atrocities including summary executions of civilians, and videos showing dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead surrounded by RSF fighters.

It also cited “indications of ethnic motivations for killings.”

According to Jalale Getachew Birru, a senior analyst at the crisis-monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), there is a “high risk of ethnically targeted attacks, particularly against non-Arab groups.”

Between April 2023 and mid-October 2025, her organization documented 390 incidents of violence against civilians in El Fasher and surrounding areas, resulting in over 1,300 reported fatalities, along with 180 attacks on internally displaced persons (IDPs) that caused at least 830 deaths.

Ethnically motivated killings have been a feature of the conflict from its outset, particularly in Darfur. The region experienced some of its worst ethnic violence in 2023, with hundreds of individuals from non-Arab ethnic groups massacred by the RSF and forces linked to it.

How did we get here?

For the past 30 months, army leader al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who heads the RSF, have been fighting over control of Sudan.

These two men, once allies and among the most powerful generals in the country, jointly ousted President Omar al-Bashir from power in 2019.

They also played significant roles in a subsequent coup in 2021 when al-Burhan seized control from Sudan’s transitional government.

Both generals have faced Western sanctions due to their involvement in war crimes. However, Dagalo’s RSF, along with its allied Arab militias, has been accused by the United States of committing genocide during the ongoing civil war. This marks the second time in two decades that the US has declared genocide in Sudan.

The US government said when making the declaration in January that the RSF had executed “direct attacks against civilians,” including the systematic murder of “men and boys – even infants – on an ethnic basis.”

Furthermore, it said, they had “deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence,” and “targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies.”

Sudan’s military government has accused the United Arab Emirates of supplying weapons to the RSF, although the UAE has denied this.

Who are the RSF?

The RSF is a paramilitary group with an estimated 100,000 fighters, approximately half the size of the SAF.

The RSF has a history tied to ethnically-driven violence.

The group emerged from the Arab Janjaweed militia, which was responsible for the genocide in Darfur during the early 2000s. That resulted in an estimated 300,000 deaths.

The recent killings in El Fasher and other areas of Darfur reflect a pattern of targeted violence similar to that seen during the earlier genocide.

According to Lynch, the RSF’s takeover of El Fasher will “only mean more misery for civilians.”

Why is El Fasher’s capture significant, and what might happen next?

The RSF’s seizure of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, represents a significant turning point that allows the group to strengthen its hold on the broader Darfur region, according to Birru.

It comes in the wake of the SAF regaining control of the country’s capital, Khartoum, from the RSF earlier this year.

Fighting is now expected to shift to the central and oil-rich Kordofan region, which borders Darfur, according to Birru.

The RSF announced on Saturday it had taken Bara, a crucial transport hub in North Kordofan state that connects the strategic town to the rest of the country.

“In Kordofan, the SAF and its allies are seeking to secure key routes connecting central Sudan to the Darfur region, while the RSF is working to consolidate control across both regions to rein in its alternative government in western Sudan,” Birru said.

“The outcome of battles in El Fasher and Kordofan will likely determine the future trajectory of Sudan’s conflict and the country’s political future,” she added, amid a global push for a ceasefire.

International human rights lawyer Yonah Diamond told CNN that the international community must intervene as violence escalates in Sudan and civilian casualties increase in El Fasher, asking whether world leaders would allow the RSF “to commit another genocide in Darfur with impunity.”

“The time for emergency action is right now – to end the bloodshed, open humanitarian corridors, and protect the people of El Fasher and what’s left of any global conscience,” he said.

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