Genocide is returning to Darfur... but this time nobody is watching

Videos posted online on Tuesday appeared to show fighters from Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) celebrating and shooting rifles in the air at El Dain, a town in east Darfur. 

So what? In the 2000s, the word Darfur became almost synonymous with genocide.

• Images of starving, black ethnic Masalit mothers and their dying children were beamed into western households.
• The Masalit were terrorised by Kalashnikov-wielding Arab militiamen known as the Janjaweed (devils on horseback).
• George Clooney, clad in a humanitarian vest, raised awareness about the 21st century’s first genocide, which killed 300,000 people.

It’s happening again. Today’s scenes in Darfur, an area twice the size of Britain, are much the same. Mass graves are filling up again and hundreds of thousands are trying to escape across the desert. But this time the gunmen are in Toyota 4x4s and there are no Hollywood celebrities to be seen.

Pity the nation. A conflict erupted between two Sudanese military factions in April for control of Africa’s third-largest country: 

• the RSF, a vast paramilitary force which grew out of the Janjaweed militias led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti”; and 
• the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel al-Burhan. 

Hemedti and al-Burhan were at first allies of convenience. Together, they put an end to Sudan’s brief experiment with a liberal, democratic government in 2022. Then hostilities between their factions boiled over.

Initially it looked like an even fight, possibly favouring the SAF with its superior air power and allies in Cairo. But the RSF now has the initiative and is making sweeping gains.

The world comes to Africa. El Dain, the town in Darfur where soldiers were celebrating on Tuesday, is one of the last pieces in the puzzle. The RSF has conquered nearly all of gold-rich Darfur and is fighting what looks like a winning battle for the bloodied ruins of the capital, Khartoum.

It has been helped by outside support. The United Arab Emirates, Hemedti’s stalwart ally, has backed Sudan’s neighbour Chad, giving the dictator there a loan of $1.5bn (almost equal to the government’s annual budget) and the promise of military vehicles. In addition:

• The UAE has mounted an airlift into eastern Chad involving more than 150 cargo flights, according to one count.
• Described as humanitarian aid for refugees fleeing Darfur, the bulk of the shipments are actually armaments for the RSF, according to The New York Times. 
• The Wagner group, which sends gold back to Moscow from Sudan, has also reportedly supplied anti-aircraft missiles to the RSF. 

Unequal fight. The SAF has received only limited outside support, from Egypt, with some reports of Ukrainian special forces taking the fight to Wagner in Sudan.

Consequences. Giving weapons to the RSF may advance outsiders’ geopolitical aims in the fractured Horn of Africa but it has consequences. Old communal wounds in Darfur have been torn open.

–   At least 13 mass graves have been counted in the city of El Geneina after the RSF and allied Arab militiamen went on a rampage there.

–   Early in November, in the town of Ardamata, at least 800 people were killed when RSF forces rounded up young men in civilian clothes.

–   Videos analysed by Tortoise show victims crawling on all fours, being whipped and begging for their lives in earth pits.

–   Some 450,000 Sudanese have fled West into Chad. They tell stories of villages and families where most of the men have been slaughtered.
Josep Borrell, the EU Foreign Policy Chief, has called for urgent international action to prevent “another genocide” in the region. But it’s unclear what can be done.

Talks in Saudi Arabia have floundered, middle-ranking powers are feasting, and the rich world’s attention is fixed on Gaza and Ukraine.

The very act of describing a conflict as “forgotten” often seems to entrench a sense of hopelessness and apathy. But there’s not much lower Sudan, and with it Darfur, can fall.