Sudan’s RSF attacks el-Fasher in Darfur as fighting rages on in Khartoum

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have launched an assault on al-Fasher after an ultimatum it issued to the Sudanese army and allied Joint Forces to withdraw from the North Darfur state capital expired on Thursday. 

The RSF, which has been at war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since April 2023, has had the city of el-Fasher surrounded since May, with widespread fears that it will kill civilians based on their ethnicity, as it has done in other parts of Darfur. 

Two days ago, the RSF gave the army and its allies 48 hours to leave el-Fasher. This ultimatum expired on Thursday and local sources told Middle East Eye the paramilitary group has launched its “final assault” on the city, with Abdul Rahim Dagalo, brother and deputy leader to RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, believed to be in command. 

Since then, the RSF has been shelling the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs), located on the northern edges of el-Fasher, as well as neighbourhoods within the city. It has met been met with opposition from the army and its allied forces.

An activist in the city said the RSF had rained down artillery fire on an emergency hospital since Wednesday, before the ultimatum expired.

“All the hospitals in el-Fasher have been attacked by drones and artillery shelling, and they are out of service,” said the activist, who did not want to be named for security reasons.

Previously the city’s only functioning hospital, Fasher South, was looted and forced to close after repeated RSF attacks. Other healthcare facilities have been significantly damaged in the fighting.

Local sources told MEE that at least four civilians were killed on Thursday, including Mohammed Ishaq, who died after an RSF mortar bomb hit his home.

‘Fear and terror’

Esra Mohamed Noor, a consultant in the el-Fasher office of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), said the RSF’s ultimatum and its expiration had provoked “fear and terror among the residents of the city and displaced people in the IDP camps”.

Noor told MEE that on Thursday “there were violent clashes between the army and the Joint Forces and the RSF to the south and east of the city, and violent artillery exchanges during the day”. 

‘Effectively both SAF and the RSF are working towards an unknown but imminent deadline brought about by the new US administration coming in’

– Kholood Khair, Sudanese analyst

She said the army had carried out air strikes on RSF positions, as it has been across Darfur. Air strikes in South Darfur’s Nyala have reportedly caused civilian casualties.

Noor said the “situation is under control of the army and its allied forces”, with the RSF unable to break the lines of the army’s sixth infantry division command. She added, though, that the RSF had launched missiles at military sites and looked to be preparing for a larger attack. 

“They usually use a two-pronged attack – a smaller attack first to deplete the defences of SAF and the Joint Forces and a larger attack that follows,” said Kholood Khair, a Sudanese analyst and founder of Confluence Advisory. 

Noor, who was communicating via a Starlink internet connection because there is no other form of communication available, said that RSF artillery strikes on the Abu Shouk camp had killed “a number of displaced people” and that “several merchants were killed in attacks on the livestock market”.

The Trump effect

The escalation of fighting in el-Fasher is matched by fierce clashes in Khartoum North, also known as Bahri. An ongoing battle around the al-Jili oil refinery, north of the capital, has caused a fire.

This blaze, fuelled by toxic gases and volatile petroleum materials, has resulted in the formation of large black clouds across the area, footage circulating online shows.

Sulaiman Baldo, a Sudanese conflict expert, said that in Khartoum North “fierce street fighting is under way, with the SAF registering advances one residential block, street and high building at a time”.

Baldo said that for the army, “the main problem is RSF sniper fire from well protected positions, causing significant casualties to the advancing SAF forces”.

Khair said that the rumoured presence of both Abdul Rahim Dagalo in Darfur and his brother, the RSF leader better known as Hemeti, in Khartoum, showed how seriously the paramilitary – and its enemy – was taking the current fighting.

“Effectively both SAF and the RSF are working towards an unknown but imminent deadline brought about by the new US administration coming in. They recognise that Sudan will be higher on the Trump administration’s agenda as it tries to deflect attention away from its ally Israel,” Khair told MEE.

On 16 January, while downplaying accusations that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that “in an era in which the term genocide has been misappropriated” the RSF’s massacres in Sudan were “a real genocide”. 

Rubio went on to mention the UAE’s “open” support for the RSF, which has been accused of genocide by the US and human rights groups. 

Khair said that both the Sudanese army and the RSF are looking to make breakthroughs on the battlefield now because they “know that soon they’ll be forced to negotiate and both want to do that from a position of strength”.

“It looks like SAF will take Khartoum and al-Gezira states, as that’s what their ally Egypt will help them secure,” Khair said. “And the RSF will continue to vie for el-Fasher even as it tries to capture all of Khartoum city.”

Abdel Ati, the Egyptian foreign minister, said recently in televised comments that his country was supporting the Sudanese army.