The RSF peddles false narrative ahead of its El Fasher offensive

Fighting for history

El Fasher, nestled in the heart of the Darfur region, is historically significant as the capital of the Darfur Sultanate, established by Sulayman Solong. It carried that status for centuries, from 1445 to 1916.

Initially, the sultanate's capital was at Jebel Marra, but due to logistical challenges in managing an expanding territory in that mountainous area, Sultan Abdul Rahman al-Rashid relocated it to Wadi Rahad Tindelti in the Darfur plains.

He renamed it El Fasher (Sultan's Castle), emphasising the region's farming potential, and built his palace on the northern bank of the valley, later expanding the settlement with homes for courtiers and guards.

Sited 802km from Sudan's capital, Khartoum, this burgeoning community eventually evolved into the administrative capital of Darfur, a role it retains to this day.

The state is home to approximately 1.8 million people, including 600,000 displaced from other parts of Darfur. The city hosts the headquarters of the Sudanese Army's Sixth Division and boasts the largest airport in the region.

Today, El Fasher and the broader North Darfur State are under siege, exacerbating the dire humanitarian conditions. According to Doctors Without Borders, a child dies from hunger every two hours in the state's Zamzam refugee camp.

Since 14 April, RSF fighters have ringed El Fasher, ready to attack. The UN Security Council urged all parties to de-escalate tensions, as did the Saudi foreign ministry.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the United Nations, said on 29 April that El Fasher was "on the brink of a large-scale massacre", with credible accounts of the RSF and allies militias destroying villages west of the city.

RSF violations

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the RSF has destroyed and burnt at least 16 villages west of El Fasher in recent days.

The attacks were marked by indiscriminate violence (including sexual violence), looting, demolition of homes and workplaces, theft of livestock, and destruction of crops.

A report from the Human Research Laboratory at Yale University, published last week, corroborated these findings with visual evidence and accurate satellite imagery.

These atrocities have triggered a second wave of displacement, forcing many who previously sought refuge in El Fasher to flee.

The Yale report confirmed RSF involvement in the wholesale arson of villages, particularly along the road leading to the city of Melit to the north, near the Libyan border—a region the RSF had previously seized in early April 2024.

El Fasher may soon suffer a similar fate to Gezira State, which was invaded by the RSF on 15 December 2023. Gezira had become a sanctuary for two million people displaced from Khartoum.

Its state capital, Wad Madani, had become a pivotal hub for the humanitarian operations of relief agencies. Its infrastructure, road network and proximity to Khartoum meant that factories and food manufacturing facilities were relocated to the area.

However, the RSF's ruthless assault brought everything to a halt. A wave of indiscriminate killings, looting, and sexual violence led 800,000 to flee. Most had come to Gezira just months earlier, hoping to rebuild their lives after fleeing Khartoum.

The RSF looted the World Food Fund's warehouses in Gezira State, which held supplies for 1.5 million people facing starvation. They even stole specialist nutrition packs for 20,000 infants, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers.

This shocking theft ended critical relief efforts underway in the region, while the attack on Gezira severely disrupted the harvesting and cultivation of about 2.2 million acres of food crops, contributing to the famine.

It was in Gezira that the RSF established its pattern of deliberately destroying agricultural resources and obliterating vital farmland.

Peddling a narrative

War monitors in Sudan are increasingly concerned that an invasion by the RSF could lead to a similar disaster. This worry is exacerbated by the RSF's escalating political rhetoric, justifying its actions by portraying the militia as a noble defender of Sudan's marginalised communities.

This is ironic because it is RSF crimes against marginalised communities such as the Masalit, Zaghawa, and others that have led to displacement, mass murder, rape, sexual slavery, persecution, and starvation.

There is already sufficient evidence of this to discredit this RSF narrative without further need for elaboration, yet the RSF has sought to ride on the rhetoric of Sudan's 2019 revolution, which overthrew dictator Omar al-Bashir.

Yet that revolution was a collective effort aimed at advancing the welfare of the people of Sudan. It was not a collective effort aimed at plundering, displacing, raping, and targeting specific social groups.

The revolution is intended to be a positive, constructive movement, not a means of revenge or of perpetrating war crimes.

Portraying the RSF as part of the revolution and framing its crimes as a means of reforming state institutions misuses leftist critiques originally aimed at addressing the flaws of the post-colonial state.

This is a deliberate tactic to extend the conflict, thereby exacerbating the suffering that primarily stems from the militia's violations. The conflict is fundamentally a struggle between two corrupt factions vying for power.

Both were complicit in a coup against civilians to seize control of the state. True, institutions like Sudan's healthcare and education systems do require reform, as does its army, but replacing them with a private militia is not the answer.

Facing facts

The RSF is owned and operated by a single family with extensive economic, external, and political ties. It has a fascist nature, having been established as an instrument of oppression under the Al-Bashir regime.

Contrary to the RSF narrative, this war is not between a noble entity fighting for the marginalised against an evil force representing 'the centre'. Instead, it is a war between a corrupt state apparatus and a violent militia that employs oppression, theft, profiteering, and cross-border conscription to advance its interests.

RSF media platforms seek to recast its leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti) as a rebel freedom fighter akin to Sudan People's Liberation Army leader John Garang, who died in 2005.

Yet efforts to justify atrocities by hijacking Sudan's political history only serve to prolong the conflict by oversimplifying or obscuring the picture.

Combating this distorted narrative is crucial to ending the war and preserving the independence and integrity of the Sudanese state. Likewise, succumbing to such a corrupted analysis bodes ill for Sudan's future.

True reform of military institutions and other state agencies cannot be achieved by amalgamating corrupt elements into a larger, tainted conglomerate.

Reducing the process of military and security reform to a simply merging of forces under a unified command is misguided and oversimplified. It is also likely to lead to more coups, increase the militarisation of society, and exacerbate instability.

True reform requires a full and transparent overhaul that fully breaks from past corrupt practices to rebuild trust and functionality in these critical institutions. It is the least that Sudan needs, and the least that Sudan deserves.