Militia war in Sudan: Fighting in Darfur is expanding

El Fasher, the last provincial capital in Darfur not yet fully controlled by Sudan’s RSF militia, is becoming a war zone. The population is suffering.

A destroyed tank after fighting in the city of Omdurman Photo: El Tayeb Siddig/Reuters

BERLIN taz | While diplomats and aid organizations are conferring in Paris about Sudan, fighting is heating up in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. As local media and observers consistently report, fierce fighting is underway around the town of El Fasher in Sudan’s western Darfur region, with numerous civilian casualties.

El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, is the only provincial capital in the region still held by Sudan’s government. It was also contested at the start of the war in April and May 2023, but locally negotiated standstill agreements between the army and the insurgent paramilitary militia RSF (Rapid Support Forces) ensured relative peace thereafter.

The RSF remained present in southern districts of the city, while the army retained the airport and military facilities in the north of the city, which then became a refuge for many people from Darfur’s war zones.

This silence is now over. Government airstrikes hit a southern neighborhood of El Fasher on Sunday evening, local civil society groups said. Video footage showed injured people covered in blood in the city’s hospital. The RSF had previously shelled other parts of the city with artillery. In several attacks starting on April 6, the militia burned a number of villages west of El Fasher and displaced their residents.

Conquest is likely to trigger new escape movements

The RSF is also said to have captured the strategically important town of Mellit, located 60 kilometers north of El Fasher on the road link to Libya – an important supply route for the militia. A “decisive victory” was achieved, the army and allied “mercenaries” were driven out and “full control” was established over Mellit, said the RSF on Monday night. “New military reinforcements” have now arrived from the north, it continued.

Former Darfur rebels who fought against the pro-regime RSF precursor militia Janjaweed twenty years ago were stationed in Mellit. Parts of the then rebel groups SLM (Sudan Liberation Movement) and JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) have allied themselves with Sudan’s army against the RSF – the former SLM rebel leader Minni Minawi has been governor of the Darfur region since 2021.

The Minawi-loyal Joint Force of Armed Struggle Movements (JSAMF) announced last Thursday in El Fasher that the armed groups were abandoning their previous neutrality and would now defend El Fasher. “We call on the people of Darfur to defend El Fasher so that it becomes the starting point for the liberation of the country,” Minawi said in a televised address. The RSF’s “provocations” must end.

But other rebel groups are not taking part. Analysts say the resulting tensions have split the Joint Force, encouraging the RSF’s advance. The capture of Mellit gives the militia control over most of North Darfur province outside the capital and is likely to trigger new refugee movements towards Chad.