Cairo, Egypt
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned of “mass atrocities” and “ethnic cleansing” underway in North Darfur, where fighting between the Sudanese army and RSF paramilitaries is raging.
“People are not only caught up in fierce and (…) indiscriminate fighting, but also targeted by the RSF and their allies, notably because of their ethnicity,” said Michel Olivier Lacharité, head of emergencies at the NGO, in a statement.
Since April 2023, the Sudanese people have been caught up in the war for power between the regular army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict has left tens of thousands dead and 13 million displaced.
After losing the capital Khartoum in March, the RSF have redirected their offensive towards the west of the country, where they are attempting to seize El-Facher, the capital of Darfur, still held by the army.
In its report entitled “Besieged, Attacked, Starving”, MSF warns of the risk of a “bloodbath” in El-Facher, where some 800,000 people have been besieged by paramilitaries since May 2024.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Friday that he was trying to negotiate a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid to reach El-Facher.
The town is largely deprived of food, water and medical care, while famine is affecting three nearby camps for displaced people.
An MSF report, based on 80 eyewitness accounts gathered between May 2024 and May 2025, describes “systematic patterns of violence including looting, massacres, sexual violence, abductions, starvation” and attacks on civilian infrastructure.
According to witnesses quoted by MSF, RSF soldiers plan to “cleanse El-Facher” of its non-Arab communities, in particular the Zaghawa ethnic group – a pillar of the Joint Forces allied to the army – raising fears of massacre after the atrocities perpetrated in 2023 against the Masalit in West Darfur.
“We fear a repeat of this scenario in El-Facher”, said Mathilde Simon, MSF’s humanitarian affairs advisor.
The troops of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, who has ruled the country since the 2021 coup, and the RSF of his former ally, General Mohamed Daglo, are regularly accused of committing massacres.
Now entering its third year, the conflict has provoked what the UN describes as “the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time”.
In North Darfur alone, more than a million people are on the brink of starvation, according to the UN.
The conflict has fragmented the African country, with the army controlling the east, center and north, while the RSF holds most of Darfur and parts of the south.
Humaniterre with AFP
