Two decades ago, the word “Darfur” rippled across the world as a symbol of unchecked atrocities in a distant land.
Today, it is happening again. Atrocities are sweeping its cities and villages. And once more, the world seems unable, or unwilling, to do much to stop it.
Since the city of El Fasher in Sudan fell last weekend to a paramilitary force, images and witness accounts have pointed to an unfolding massacre.
Residents were shot as they fled the city through fields. The head of the W.H.O. says that hundreds were killed in a day in the city’s last hospital. Videos show victims being casually executed.
Those who survive the arduous journey to Tawila, 40 miles away, where a few international aid groups operate, bring accounts of terror, starvation and death.
The paramilitaries, known as the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., are descended from the lawless Janjaweed, predominantly Arab militias that terrorized Darfur in the early 2000s, accused of committing genocide. And the same ethnic rivalries that fueled the chaos in Darfur two decades ago seem to be driving many of the abuses today.
Now, though, the fighters rampaging across Darfur, a region in western Sudan, are better armed, organized and funded than ever.
Before, they rode mainly on horses and camels; now, they have armored vehicles and pickups. Before, they torched villages; now, they fire heavy artillery, fly sophisticated drones and have the backing of one of the wealthiest countries in the wider region, the United Arab Emirates.
In the past, the paramilitaries had fought on the same side as the Sudanese Army. But now, the two are fighting each other in a bare-knuckle battle that has ripped Sudan apart and caused, by many measures, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
Where the Janjaweed seemed intent on dominating Darfur decades ago, the R.S.F. now wants to rule all of Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country. The civil war between the Sudanese Army and the R.S.F. that erupted in April 2023 stemmed in part from the political ambitions of the R.S.F. leader, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, who is widely known as Hemeti.
Before the war, General Hamdan positioned himself as a national leader and even a democrat. He championed the cause of Sudanese people who felt marginalized under the military, which has dominated the country’s leadership since the 1950s and is led by a few ethnic groups from northern Sudan.
In August, General Hamdan declared his own parallel government, headquartered in the city of Nyala, in the state of South Darfur, as part of his drive for legitimacy.
But on the battlefield, his troops have continued to perpetrate atrocities, often targeting members of the Zaghawa ethnic group. The United Nations and rights groups call the atrocities war crimes. The Biden administration described them as genocide. Sexual violence is also widespread, the U.N. says.
Until this week, El Fasher was the only city in Darfur not controlled by the R.S.F. Standing against those forces, a contingent of Sudanese soldiers and allied Darfuri militiamen clung to a garrison near the airport, their last in the region.
As the R.S.F. tightened its siege, fighters built a high earthen berm that looped around the city, satellite images showed, eventually trapping about a quarter-million residents inside it. Civilians who tried to smuggle food or medicine over the berm were beaten or killed. Residents began to starve, and in the city’s last functioning hospital, doctors resorted to feeding malnourished children with animal feed because that was all they had for the patients — or themselves.
The violent chaos is, in some respects, a new struggle on an old battlefield.
Two decades ago, thousands of villagers flooded into El Fasher, capital of the ancient kingdom of Darfur, seeking shelter from ethnic massacres in the surrounding countryside, where Janjaweed fighters burned down homes in a scorched-earth policy that became their signature.
Sprawling camps sprang up around the city. Even after a semblance of peace returned to the area, many camp residents were unable to return home. The largest camp, Zamzam, eventually swelled to a half-million people.
Last year, Zamzam became the center of a famine that has since spread across the country. In April, R.S.F. fighters stormed through the camp, clearing it out and killing hundreds of people in the process, including the entire staff of the camp’s medical clinic, the U.N. said.
Twenty years ago, international outrage grew over Darfur. Celebrity activists like George Clooney made Darfur a global cause, leading protest marches attended by huge crowds on the streets of Washington.
For a time, the crisis in Darfur was a foreign policy priority for President George W. Bush, and it became a source of friction with China, which had oil investments in Sudan.
The latest atrocities have brought strident condemnation, but it has largely been limited to policy circles — the United Nations Security Council, some members of the U.S. Congress and a handful of politicians elsewhere. Few celebrities, much less mass protests, have raised their voices.
The Biden administration tried to push for peace in Sudan, privately exerting pressure on the emiratis to stop supporting the R.S.F. President Trump’s special adviser to Africa, Massad Boulos, is trying to broker a cease-fire. But, so far, there has been little sign of success. And Mr. Boulos’s efforts include diplomats from the emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia — the same regional Arab powers that are fueling the conflict by backing one side or the other.
Despite the American accusations of genocide, few officials have been willing to openly criticize the emirati role in stoking the conflict, said Michelle D. Gavin, a senior fellow for Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“There has been a complete unwillingness to publicly acknowledge the facts on the ground — that the U.A.E. is arming and supporting a genocidal force,” she said.
In September, the United Arab Emirates signed a declaration, negotiated by Mr. Boulos, that called on foreign powers to stop funding the conflict. On the ground, though, it appeared to have little effect, Ms. Gavin added.
“Everybody knew what would happen when El Fasher fell — that in addition to the horrors of a starvation siege, the R.S.F. would massacre people,” she said. “Yet, that didn’t seem to prompt any change in emirati behavior.”
Declan Walsh is the chief Africa correspondent for The Times based in Nairobi, Kenya. He previously reported from Cairo, covering the Middle East, and Islamabad, Pakistan.
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