Johannesburg — A robust paramilitary drive combating the federal government in Sudan’s raging two-and-a-half-year civil battle claimed over the weekend to have captured the town of El-Fasher, the place tons of of 1000’s of civilians have been trapped, lower off from the world for months.
“The level of suffering that we are witnessing in Sudan is unbearable,” he mentioned.
Experiences circulating on social media on Sunday mentioned RSF forces had taken management of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ sixth Division Headquarters in El-Fasher.
A desk bearing indicators of shelling is seen in a faculty the place displaced folks had been sheltering, in El-Fasher, Sudan, Oct. 7, 2025.
Mohyaldeen M Abdallah/REUTERS
The Yale Faculty of Public Well being’s Humanitarian Analysis Lab (HRL), which has monitored the battle, mentioned it was capable of affirm from satellite tv for pc imagery that RSF forces launched a significant assault on El-Fasher on Sunday.
The HRL mentioned there was “evidence of close-quarter battle” within the metropolis, and that the “activity “may be consistent with reporting that RSF has taken prisoners in and around the [army] airfield.”
The Yale lab mentioned it could proceed to observe satellite tv for pc imagery for any proof of “mass atrocities” dedicated in El-Fasher.
The RSF claimed in an announcement to have taken full management of the town, however the military mentioned combating continued, and impartial analysts mentioned the declare couldn’t be verified.
A satellite tv for pc photograph offered by Planet Labs PBC exhibits the world across the headquarters of the Sudanese navy’s sixth Division in el-Fasher, Sudan, Oct. 26, 2025.
Planet Labs PBC/AP
The U.N. has known as for civilians trapped contained in the Sudanese metropolis – of whom there are believed to be some 250,000 – to be allowed to go away. U.N. Emergency Aid Coordinator Tom Fletcher known as for a ceasefire within the city to permit folks to flee.
The RSF forces have encircled El-Fasher for weeks, constructing an earthen berm across the metropolis to cease provides getting in and other people getting out. It’s the final remaining stronghold of the Sudanese military within the Darfur area, and if the RSF does totally seize El-Fasher, it could depart the group in command of all 5 of Darfur’s states.
Analysts have warned that the RSF has indicated it could transfer to formally partition Sudan and arrange a parallel authorities within the areas below its management.
An infographic created on March 27, 2025 exhibits the world held by the Sudanese military, in inexperienced, and the paramilitary Speedy Assist Forces (RSF), in orange, which incorporates many of the Darfur area, aside from the town of El-Fasher in North Darfur state.
Omar Zaghloul/Anadolu/Getty
Unverified photos posted on social media appeared to point out RSF fighters strolling amongst our bodies and injured civilians as fighters celebrated inside El-Fasher on Sunday.
Combating has raged round El-Fasher for 18 months, leaving tens of 1000’s of trapped residents starved of each necessity from meals to medical provides, and with little technique of speaking with the skin world. From the few witness accounts to emerge, it’s been clear that drone and artillery strikes have turn out to be part of day by day life as the military and RSF battled over the town.
Sudan’s civil battle broke out in April 2023, when an influence sharing settlement between commanders of the military and the RSF collapsed over plans to mix their forces. Combating has raged ever since, and each side have been accused of suspected battle crimes because the combating fuels what the U.N. considers the world’s single largest humanitarian disaster.
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