Threat of RSF invasion looms over el-Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur

North Darfur, Sudan – Sara Ismail wears a black hijab and camouflage, and wields an AK-47, in the central market of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.

The 30-year-old is a member of the Sudan Liberation Army belonging to Minnie Arko Minnawi (SLA-MM), a former Darfur rebel leader now allied with the Sudanese army.

“We’ve picked up weapons to protect our land and ourselves,” she said, holding her rifle close.

Formerly part of the political office of the SLA-MM, Ismael decided to take up arms seven months ago to protect her community and herself from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary fighting the army for control of Sudan since April 2023.

Hailing from the Zaghawa, a Darfuri tribe classified as “non-Arab”, she is on duty in el-Fasher while her family lives in the nearby displacement camp, Zamzam.

She worries for their safety with the looming threat of the RSF, who for decades have been known for their brutal violence against non-Arabs in Darfur, including wielding sexual violence as a weapon of war.

“I swear to God, I won’t get raped [by the RSF]. I would rather die than get raped by them,” Ismael said vehemently.

In this image grab taken from handout video footage released by the RSF on April 23, 2023, shows fighters in a pickup truck mounted with a turret in the East Nile district of greater Khartoum [RSF/AFP]

From past to present

The possibility of the RSF ruling el-Fasher terrifies inhabitants, especially those who lived through the first Darfur war which erupted in 2003 and sputtered on since.

Darfur’s tribal society is classified broadly into “non-Arab” (sedentary) and “Arab” (nomadic) tribes, both groupings are Black and Muslim and have lived in Darfur for centuries. The non-Arab tribes speak several languages, as well as Arabic.

In 2003, former President Omar al-Bashir – a military man who came to power through a coup in 1989 –  outsourced to Arab tribal militias the task of crushing an uprising by mostly non-Arab uprising groups angered by the region’s longstanding political and economic marginalisation.

His tribal militias became notoriously known to its victims and observers as the Janjaweed (Devils on Horseback) for committing harrowing abuses, including burning entire villages to the ground and carrying out summary killings, leading to accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Years later, these Arab tribal militias were repackaged by al-Bashir as the RSF but many Sudanese, like Ismael, still call the RSF “Janjaweed”.

“Many of us have had to carry weapons since 2004,” she said. “Since 2004, the Janjaweed has been raping us and killing women and girls.”

RSF closing in

By November 2023, the RSF had conquered four Darfur states – South, East, West and Central – and looked like it would soon take the North, sowing fear among the people and armed groups living there.

In April, possibly angered by the el-Fasher armed movements abandoning neutrality and declaring allegiance to the army, the RSF encircled el-Fasher and nearby towns.

The armed movements saw a surge in recruitment as the standoff cut along ethnic lines, with “non-Arab” tribes preparing to square off against “Arab” tribes.

Despite the el-Fasher armed movements coming together, a source from an international nongovernmental organisation monitoring developments in el-Fasher said, the RSF might capture the city at any moment.

“We are closer than we have ever been to that scenario, but how close remains anybody’s guess,” said the source, who requested anonymity to protect staff on the ground.

“I wake up every day and I think this could be the day.”

A fire rages in a livestock market in el-Fasher on September 1, 2023, in the aftermath of RSF bombing [AFP]

Ethnic killing, militarisation and starvation

Both sides in the current conflict have committed human rights abuses in Darfur – blocking aid, firing on civilians and executing prisoners, according to rights groups and a report by a UN fact-finding mission.

The UN found the RSF committed additional abuses, including mass killings, forcefully expelling populations from their land and kidnapping and gang-raping women and girls – abuses that likely amount to crimes against humanity.

The rebranded RSF is still systematically targeting the non-Arab tribes across the region. The Zaghawa, one of North Darfur’s largest tribes whose areas stretch into Libya and Chad, are particularly vulnerable.

Zaghawa fighters played a prominent role in rebelling against al-Bashir’s government in 2003 and the state-backed Janjaweed militias responded by attacking the entire community.

The RSF has continued this trend, deliberately setting fire to more than 80 Zaghawa communities in North Darfur between April and November, according to satellite imagery obtained by the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab.

It also routinely shells el-Fasher and deploys armed aerial drones, terrifying and displacing thousands of civilians, according to residents and news reports.

It is this spectre of all-out war – and mass killings – that has prompted thousands of people to pick up weapons and create their own self-defence groups, known as the “mustanfireen”.

“The more people resist in Darfur, the more the RSF retaliates with revenge and targeted killings,” said a foreign relief worker, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We are really in a vicious circle … but the RSF refuses to take a different approach. They keep targeting places where they are not welcome,” the relief worker told Al Jazeera.

RSF spokesperson Al-Fateh al-Qurashi dismissed the accusations that his forces are targeting Zaghawa communities in North Darfur and restricting aid.

He called the accusations “laughable” and said they aimed to portray fighting in Darfur as a “tribal war.”

However, deputy RSF leader Abdelraheem Dagalo previously framed the ongoing violence in Darfur as a tribal war to deflect from credible accusations that the group carried out mass atrocities in West Darfur’s capital el-Geneina, where up to 15,000 people from the non-Arab Masalit tribe were killed, according to a UN panel of experts report.

RSF fighters in the East Nile province, Sudan, on June 22, 2019 [Hussein Malla/AP]

Al-Qurashi claimed there is no tribal animosity between Arab tribes and the Zaghawa because the RSF includes some Zaghawa recruits, which Al Jazeera was not able to confirm.

“The Rapid Support Forces are not fighting the Zaghawa tribe and have no enmity with the tribe,” Qurashi told Al Jazeera in an email.

Safe haven?

In the southwest of el-Fasher is the sprawling Zamzam camp, where an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 displaced people have sought shelter since April 2023, swelling the total population to some half a million people, most of whom are Zaghawa.

Residents, journalists, researchers and NGOs all warn that if the RSF captures el-Fasher, then they will storm Zamzam to kill and uproot the non-Arab population there.

The camp is also where the only corridor out of el-Fasher can be accessed, the path for people fleeing to Chad or for aid organisations wanting to bring aid into the area.

It was established by an armed group known as the Sudanese Liberation Army headed by Abdelwahid al-Nur (SLA-AW), who exploited the war to claim more territory in Darfur.

The group supposedly remains neutral, and the presence of its forces has allowed civilians to flee and for supplies to be brought into the beleaguered civilians in Zamzam.

While inhabitants have been relatively safer from artillery, they have struggled with hunger.

In August, the UN declared a famine in Zamzam and blamed the warring parties for impeding food aid since the outbreak of the conflict.

That same month, the army relented and granted access to UN agencies to deliver food from the Adre, Chad crossing into West Darfur.

However, the RSF is still obstructing aid as just a handful of food trucks have reached hungry civilians, residents and aid workers told Al Jazeera.

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, told Al Jazeera that about 400 trucks – or 8,000 tonnes of food – should be reaching Zamzam each month to reverse the famine.

A displaced Sudanese woman rests at Zamzam camp, on August 1, 2024 [Mohamed Jamal Jebrel/Reuters]

“You can imagine how many [trucks should be getting in] for all of Darfur,” the aid group said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

“[But] since August and the ‘opening’ of the Adre border crossing point [only] 262 UN agency trucks entered Darfur between August and October.”

The threat against Zamzam

Mohamed Nyala, a journalist from Darfur who monitors the situation, told Al Jazeera the RSF will likely commit massacres in Zamzam if it captures el-Fasher.

“In el-Fasher, it’s less of a war between the RSF and the army and more between the Arab and Zaghawa,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Even if [the leaders of the RSF] tell their fighters not to commit atrocities in Zamzam, the fighters won’t listen,” he told Al Jazeera.

According to an HRL satellite imagery analysis from November 11, a number of fighters in Zamzam have taken “defensive” positions in anticipation of a potential attack on the area.

Relief workers have warned that a potential attack on el-Fasher could lead to one of the worst humanitarian emergencies of the entire war.

The country is already reeling from the world’s largest displacement crisis, in which more than 11 million people have been uprooted from their homes.

Over the last few days, the RSF has begun attacking Zamzam from afar, firing artillery and several rockets into the densely populated camp, which killed several people and injured many, according to local sources Al Jazeera spoke to.

In the past, the RSF has committed atrocities in displacement camps after capturing cities and army garrisons, the statement warned.

In November 2023, the paramilitary killed about 1,300 people in Ardamata camp in West Darfur after conquering the area – the vast majority of victims were unarmed children and men.

People in Zamzam fear the same fate if el-Fasher falls to the RSF.

“We are ready to fight and clean up every last Janjaweed fighter to rescue Sudan,” said Ismael.

“I will fight until my last breath.”