Fleeing the fighting between the army and the paramilitia. Image: keystone
October 26, 2025, 3:01 p.mOctober 26, 2025, 3:14 p.m
In Sudan, the paramilitary group RSF is advancing on the last government-controlled city in the southwest of the country. The militia announced on Sunday morning that it now controls the town of El Fasher after previously taking over the army headquarters there. The army did not initially comment. The capital of the state of North Darfur has been under siege for a year and a half.
The army said it had repelled two serious attacks on Saturday morning. The sixth infantry division stationed in El Fascher said that numerous militia fighters were killed and injured. None of the information could initially be independently confirmed.
El Fasher is the last town under government control in the Darfur region, which has been almost completely taken over by the militia in the conflict that has been going on for two and a half years. According to UN estimates, up to 300,000 people still live in the city under conditions that aid workers describe as a humanitarian catastrophe.
Refugees in Sudan are threatened with killings, torture and rape.Image: keystone
An employee of an international aid organization told the German Press Agency on Sunday that they had received videos of civilians fleeing the city. However, all connections to contacts in the city have been lost.
Killings, torture and rape are feared
If the paramilitia succeeds in taking the city, serious acts of violence, killings, torture and rape as well as ethnic cleansing as in the previously captured parts of Darfur are feared.
Since April 2023, there has been a bloody power struggle in Sudan between the de facto ruler Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the RSF. The militia emerged from Arab cavalry militias, which – together with the Sudanese army at the time – were accused of genocide against the ethnic African population in Darfur a good 20 years ago, with up to 300,000 deaths.
While the army has since been able to recapture the capital Khartoum, the RSF has consolidated its control over the Darfur region on the border with Chad. Observers fear a permanent division in the country.
There are no reliable casualty figures; according to an estimate cited by the USA, up to 150,000 people could have died. The UN describes the situation in the country as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. More than twelve million people are on the run. More than 26 million people, around half of the population, are at risk of hunger.
(sda/dpa)