A humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Sudan. Aid organizations warn of catastrophic conditions.
Dec 16, 2025, 9:26 p.mDec 16, 2025, 9:26 p.m
Since April 2023, there has been a bloody power struggle in Sudan between the government and the RSF (Rapid Support Forces) militia. At the end of October, the conflict hit the headlines again when a strategically important town of Al-Fashir in the North Darfur region in the west of the country fell into rebel hands.
Refugees in front of a wall with bullet holes: According to human rights organizations, tens of thousands of people may have died in the conflict since October.Image: keystone
Researchers and aid organizations agree: the humanitarian situation in North Darfur is catastrophic. Scientists at Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab analyze satellite images to gather information about troop movements, bombings and mass graves. They believe it is possible that there have been tens of thousands of deaths since the RSF militia took over the city. People in the city have been starving for months. Aid organizations have no access.
Satellite images show piles of corpses
Nathaniel Raymond, director of the Research Lab, reports to the German Press Agency about his observations shortly after the militia took the city. “Within the first seven to ten days, over 140 piles of corpses were visible,” he says. «They move them (the bodies) and burn them. This has been going on for weeks. It’s a slaughterhouse.”
However, scientists can hardly detect any signs of life from civilians. No people at the watering holes, no donkey carts at the markets. “We only see RSF movements, we see looting,” says Raymond. “If there are still large numbers of civilians in the city, they will hide.”
Satellite image of a burning warehouse in Al-Fashir.Image: keystone
Internally displaced people tell of attacks
But the situation is not only dramatic in Al-Fashir, it is also dramatic in Tawila, about 70 kilometers away, even if the drama is different there. Veronicah Mbogo from the aid organization Plan International is currently in the city as a child protection expert. Tens of thousands of internally displaced people have sought refuge there.
“There is a lack of everything – food, hygiene products, accommodation,” says Mbogo. “Often they don’t even have a towel, a change of clothes or the essentials” because they were robbed by RSF militias at checkpoints. Some refugees received plastic sheeting, others built temporary shelters out of millet stalks.
Aid organizations report sexual violence
It’s not just satellite images, but the people from there and their descriptions that help to capture the horror in Al-Fashir. The city was besieged by the RSF militia for a year and a half before it was taken. As a result, most refugees arrive in Tawila in poor condition. There was hardly any food.
RSF soldiers.Image: keystone
There are many reports of sexual violence. Rape was already a weapon of war 20 years ago during the genocide in Darfur. Nothing has changed to this day.
A few days ago, the women’s network Siha published a report on sexual violence in the war. “The war in Sudan is characterized by sexual violence and other serious abuse to specifically oppress and humiliate Sudanese communities,” says Regional Director Hala Al-Karib.
Stigma and silence
Victims of sexual violence are stigmatized in Sudan – which is why many of those affected do not talk about their experiences. The women’s network assumes that the number of unreported cases is high. Plan helper Veronicah Mbogo also reports shame and silence. “The women and girls often only open up to employees of aid organizations,” she says. “But within their own community it is often not safe for them to report what has happened to them.”
Women even fear being killed by their brothers.Image: keystone
Young, unmarried women and girls in particular feared that they would not be able to find a husband if it was known that sexual violence had been done to them. Others even fear being killed by their brothers or other relatives because they see the family honor violated.
The reports are “shocking”
In the neighboring country of Chad you can also meet refugees from Darfur and their stories. Jan Sebastian Friedrich-Rust, managing director of Action Against Hunger, recently met survivors from Al-Fashir there. «A woman who recently started living in a refugee camp with two grandchildren said that her two brothers were killed in front of her. “She herself was seriously injured in Al-Fashir and had to go to the hospital,” he describes her report.
As they fled, people had to witness horrors: girls and women being raped on the streets. People who were killed indiscriminately. “Their reports are shocking.” (dpa)
You might also be interested in these articles: