Civilians in Sudan’s North Darfur’s capital, el-Fasher, and surrounding towns are starving.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have imposed a siege on them for about a year, yet they managed to forestall an invasion thanks to the Joint Forces – an array of local armed factions backed by the army.
The besieged civilians are now pleading for help, but some fear the army has neither the political will nor the capability to rescue civilians, say experts, local journalists and civilians.
The nearly 500,000 civilians in Zamzam camp – the largest refugee camp in North Darfur – are already suffering from famine, according to the United Nations global hunger monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Residents in Zamzam told Al Jazeera the army dropped some food aid from its warplanes earlier this week, but said supplies will run out in a few days.
“All Sudanese military and security agencies should move towards [North Darfur] to ensure the flow of food, medicine and humanitarian supplies to besieged civilians,” said Mohamed Khamis Doda, the spokesperson for Zamzam camp.
“There must also be an immediate intervention of [humanitarian organisations],” he added.
Abandoning Darfur?
Most people in the camp, and in el-Fasher, are from sedentary farming communities, known as “non-Arabs”, while most of the fighters attacking them come from the nomadic or pastoralist “Arab” tribes the RSF typically recruits from.
Since April 2023, the RSF has been fighting Sudan’s army in a catastrophic civil war that has triggered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by most measures.
The RSF quickly captured four out of five Darfur states – South, East, West and Central Darfur – in 2023. North Darfur was the holdout.
The UN accuses both sides of atrocities but says the RSF has systematically raped women and girls and “disappeared” thousands of civilians.
Many of these crimes have been committed in Darfur, an RSF stronghold nearly the size of France.
In April 2024, the RSF besieged North Darfur’s capital, el-Fasher, after many local armed factions – part of the Joint Forces – sided with the army, despite having formed in the early 2000s in rebellion against the central government’s marginalisation of their tribes and region.
Since the army captured the capital, Khartoum, in March, experts and civilians from Darfur worry that it will neglect the region again by prioritising its control over central and northern Sudan.
“At the moment, I’m not sure if the army has the political will and resources to continue to fight [in Darfur],” said Jawhara Kanu, an independent Sudan expert originally from North Darfur.
Kanu added that over the past two years, there has been a growing number of personalities with large followings inciting hatred on social media against civilians in Darfur, blaming everyone from the region for the RSF’s criminality.
“They believe the RSF is from Darfur, so let’s just let go of Darfur,” Kanu told Al Jazeera.
“I’m afraid that public opinion [in north and central Sudan] might affect the army’s and allied forces’ decision to [fight for Darfur].”
Indiscriminate warfare
On March 24, the army fired four rockets at a crowded market in North Darfur’s Torra village at sunset, when hundreds of people were gathering to break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Local monitors estimate that at least 350 people were killed.
“There were so many civilians who were killed and injured. So many of them were women and children,” said Adam Rojal, a spokesperson for displaced people in Darfur. “There was absolutely no justification.”
Al Jazeera sent a written inquiry to army spokesperson, Nabil Abdallah, asking why the army hit the crowded market during iftar. He had not replied by the time of publication.
A source monitoring the situation in Darfur, who asked to remain anonymous to protect colleagues from reprisals, told Al Jazeera the army’s air strikes are the only deterrent against RSF fighters.
Despite the attack on Torra, most civilians in North Darfur fear an RSF invasion more than army air strikes.
They believe the group will commit mass killings and rapes and plunder entire cities – as it has done across Sudan – if it conquers el-Fasher and surrounding villages.
However, the source warned, the army won’t be able to strike the RSF accurately if the group infiltrates densely populated spaces in North Darfur, such as el-Fasher and Zamzam.
“I think that strike [on Torra] indicated that even if the RSF gets inside el-Fasher, the army isn’t going to hold back. And what that means for civilians … Well, I think we already have an idea,” the source told Al Jazeera.
A deal to surrender?
Local monitors say the RSF has stepped up abuses across North Darfur in recent weeks.
On April 1, the group killed at least seven people in shelling on Abu Shouk displacement camp, where some 190,000 people live.
Ten days earlier, it stormed the town of al-Malha, north of el-Fasher, reportedly killing at least 40 people, destroying homes, and looting and burning down the market, exacerbating hunger in the area.
The capture of al-Malha, which is located next to Libya, gives the RSF another vital supply line as they close in on el-Fasher, local monitors told Al Jazeera.
On the other hand, they say, the Joint Forces cannot get new weaponry or recruit new fighters due to the siege.
On Sunday, Joint Forces leader, Minni Minawi called for “dialogue” during a speech on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, appearing to contradict an earlier speech by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who promised the army would fight on after capturing Khartoum.
Minawi’s words have prompted speculation that the Joint Forces could seek a deal with the RSF to evade bloodshed, experts and local monitors told Al Jazeera.
However, civilians in the area fear that any deal would result in the ethnic cleansing of non-Arabs, said Mohamed Zakaria, a journalist in el-Fasher.
“The Joint Forces are the sons of people living in this area. It’s really difficult to imagine them surrendering to the RSF, because then the RSF could kill everyone [non-Arabs] who remain here,” he said.
“[Non-Arab communities] view North Darfur as their land; it’s impossible for them to leave.
“They will live or die here,” he added.