A new effort to secure a ceasefire has been overshadowed by a major military victory and a wave of mass atrocities

In late October, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in what may prove the most consequential military and humanitarian turning point since Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023.

The city’s capture means the RSF now controls all major urban centres in the region and signals a pivotal shift in the military balance of power (see SUDAN: Civil war may enter a new phase – May 2, 2025).

Deadly siege

El Fasher’s fall was not only a military event but also a humanitarian and political rupture that may reshape the war’s trajectory.

In the months leading up to its capture, the RSF imposed a near-total siege on the city: roads leading into the city were cut, supply routes severed, markets emptied and humanitarian assistance blocked. To achieve this, the paramilitary force had constructed a massive earthwork berm around the city to enforce its blockade, controlling access in and out of El Fasher.

The result was immense human suffering. As food became either scarce or prohibitively expensive, around 260,000 people trapped in El Fasher were forced to skip meals and survive on animal feed and wild roots. Hospitals and clinics were overwhelmed or non-functional, with only one hospital partially operating before the city’s fall.

By the time the city fell, the situation had deteriorated into a confirmed famine, a rare and grave classification underscoring the scale of starvation and deprivation (see SUDAN: Civilians face an escalating famine situation – January 8, 2025).

Beyond deprivation, civilians endured constant bombardment, sniping, raids and systemic violence. Displacement camps, such as Abu Shouk and Zamzam, were repeatedly shelled.

The RSF blockade meant that escape routes were both limited and deadly. Many civilians who tried to flee were abducted or killed, deterring others from fleeing through what residents described as a “kill box”.

Brutal offensive

If conditions during the siege were dire, the consequences of the RSF’s capture of the town were of another order entirely. In the immediate aftermath, multiple reports described wave after wave of atrocities: summary executions of men and boys, sexual violence, forced disappearances, looting and attacks on hospitals and displacement sites.

Although normal communications remain largely cut off, reports using satellite imagery by the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at Yale School of Public Health and on-the-ground reports — as well as videos taken by RSF fighters themselves — provide strong evidence of mass killings of civilians, including graphic scenes of summary executions, and visual indications of piles of dead bodies, mass graves and enormous blood pools in various parts of the city.

One of the most shocking events occurred within hours of the takeover, when RSF fighters reportedly stormed the Saudi Maternity Hospital, killing more than 460 patients, health workers and family members, and abducting medical staff. This deliberate targeting of a medical facility reflects a long-standing pattern of deliberate and systematic violence against civilians and essential infrastructure.

Ten of thousands of people attempted to flee on foot immediately after the town’s fall, where they had to walk for about 60 kilometres to other towns in North Darfur. Although estimates vary due to communication disruptions, International Organisation for Migration reports suggest that some 90,000 people fled the city in the first days. However, fewer than 10,000 have so far been formally accounted for in nearby displacement zones.

There have been numerous videos showing RSF fighters firing on civilians attempting to escape. Survivors who made it to nearby towns reported seeing many dead bodies lining the roads, and injured people left behind because their families could not carry them.

The scale of the violence appears to have been enormous. The UN and other actors have so far cautiously estimated a death toll of a few thousand people, but the true figure looks very likely to prove significantly larger than that. The International Criminal Court saysit is gathering evidence of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Crucially, none of this was unexpected. Sudanese analysts, civil society groups, humanitarian actors and international observers had warned in hundreds of articles going back to the early days of the siege some 18 months ago that the city faced a serious risk of mass atrocities.

Ultimately, El Fasher may prove to be one of the most widely predicted genocides in history, and a stark symbol of the consequences of the failure of international actors to take serious action to try to end Sudan’s war or prevent mass atrocities (see SUDAN: El Fasher faces risk of mass atrocities – June 10, 2024).

No ceasefire

Notably, El Fasher’s fall came just days after the United States hosted representatives from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (the Quad), as well as delegations from SAF and the RSF, in Washington to discuss a ceasefire proposal.

The talks provided the backdrop for yet another major escalation in fighting. This is not an isolated occurrence, but rather a pattern in which attempts at peace talks have recurrently led to an uptick in fighting on the ground.

In part, this is a consequence of the structure of the peace talks. As the initiative focuses exclusively on the belligerents, it has encouraged them to fight to expand their territorial control in order to improve their bargaining position ahead of any talks — and especially ahead of any pressure to agree to a ceasefire that might compromise their ongoing military objectives.

Meanwhile, despite public expressions of confidence from Washington that SAF and the RSF had agreed “in principle” to a ceasefire, no ceasefire has actually been concluded.

On November 6, the RSF did announce that it was ready to agree to a humanitarian truce, but this announcement cannot be taken at face value. In every round of peace talks since the conflict began, the RSF has strived to present itself as open to peace and cooperation with international mediation efforts, without ever adjusting its behaviour on the ground. Similarly, it has consistently issued statements stressing its commitment to the protection of civilians and the facilitation of humanitarian assistance, even as its fighters loot aid supplies and perpetrate mass atrocities (see SUDAN: Chaotic mediation dims prospects of ending war – July 24, 2024).

Moreover, the RSF announcement came at a time when it had become increasingly clear that SAF was not going to agree to the truce, allowing the paramilitaries to score easy public relations points by appearing more amenable to peace efforts than their military counterparts.

Although SAF has not formally rejected the Quad’s ceasefire proposal, it has said it does not recognise the Quad as a formal grouping and will only deal with its member states on a bilateral basis, while touting its own peace proposal to international interlocutors, including the Quad.

Meanwhile, senior officials, up to and including SAF commander General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, continue with bellicose rhetoric, promising to eliminate the RSF and deliver a military victory. In part, this may represent an effort to appeal to domestic constituencies that are not amenable to a peace process involving the RSF, but it also likely reflects a broad consensus within the SAF-led alliance.

Much attention has been paid to the long-standing resistance of SAF-aligned Islamist factions to peace talks — and indeed some pro-Islamist figures issued veiled threats against Burhan should he agree to a truce. However, this also includes the former Darfuri rebel groups fighting alongside SAF against the RSF, which believe that any peace process would ultimately entail sacrificing Darfur to the paramilitaries.

Flawed premises

The Quad formally launched its initiative on September 12, laying out a road map consisting of a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a permanent ceasefire, leading to a nine-month transition and eventually a civilian-led government.

The Quad’s framework rested on two crucial assumptions:

• that neither party could win militarily; and
• that coordinated pressure from Washington, Abu Dhabi, Cairo and Riyadh could compel a negotiated settlement.

However, the events in El Fasher have fundamentally altered the equation: the premise that the prolonged and inconclusive battle for El Fasher had created war fatigue on all sides no longer holds. Now, although neither party can hope to defeat the other conclusively, they each have a coherent piece of territory to defend and some hope to expand it further. This is likely to result in the creation of new front lines in the war, as both sides battle to control new territory and new resources — most immediately in the Kordofan region.

El Fasher’s fall was not the only factor undermining the fragile Quad peace initiative. From the outset, the Quad members have struggled to agree even among themselves on how to navigate a path out of the crisis. For example, in late September, they held a ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly that failed to deliver any steps for further action.

The Quad comprises the four actors with the greatest influence over the Sudanese belligerents, which in theory makes them the actors with the greatest potential to help prompt an end to the fighting. However, the Quad’s members have divergent interests in Sudan and competing visions for a post-war dispensation, and thus have essentially been working against each other despite being part of the same initiative.

The UAE has been credibly accused of supporting the RSF, while Egypt and Saudi Arabia have close ties to SAF. These dynamics raise serious questions about the Quad’s neutrality and collective commitment, and help to explain its limited impact since its formation.

The Quad diplomatic push does represent a significant elevation of US engagement. This shift is being driven by Massad Boulos, President Donald Trump’s energetic ‘Special Adviser on Africa’, who has taken an interest in Sudan and declared it a “priority”. Moreover, Abu Dhabi, Cairo and Riyadh have actively lobbied Washington to weigh in, reflecting their growing discomfort with the quagmire created by the war.

However, the United States ultimately lacks any strong interests in Sudan. Although this does lend it a degree of impartiality, it also means that it has been unwilling to put serious pressure on its Quad partners to reach a compromise, not least because it wants their support in other areas where its interests are more pressing. Therefore, Washington’s renewed engagement looks unlikely to mark a genuine turning point, even if it may encourage the belligerents to pay lip service (and no more) to engagement with the peace process.

Missing links

Beyond the challenge of managing the competing interests of its members, the Quad’s approach excludes some crucial actors, notably including the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional bloc historically mandated to mediate conflicts in East Africa. Although these actors lack capacity and leverage, they do have legitimacy, as well as deep networks among regional actors that could be central to forging Sudan’s future.

Meanwhile, the Quad’s stated principle — that SAF and the RSF should not dictate Sudan’s political future and that civilians must lead — has so far been little more than empty rhetoric. Civilian actors — including political parties, civil society networks, resistance committees and grassroots initiatives — have been almost entirely sidelined in favour of direct engagement with armed elites and their political surrogates. Indeed, US officials privately admit that there is no vision for how to bring such actors into the process, or indeed for what should happen after a ceasefire deal is struck.

El Fasher was the Quad’s first major test, and it failed, but the verdict on Sudan’s diplomacy is not final. The conflict remains dynamic, and international leverage does exist. However, unless diplomatic engagement is recalibrated to align means with stated principles by placing Sudanese civilians at the centre of the equation, taking firm measures to end external support to the two belligerents and re-engaging with regional institutions, future efforts risk repeating the same structural shortcomings.

For now, El Fasher stands as a devastating reminder: early warnings are meaningless if not matched by early action, and mass-atrocity prevention frameworks fail when political will lags behind evidence and exigency.