3.3 – Global governance: human rights and environmental
The fall of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in late October 2025 has become one of the darkest moments of Sudan’s ongoing civil war. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary group led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, overran the city after months of siege. According to United Nations officials, at least 1,500 civilians were killed in three days of intense fighting, and more than 260,000 residents were trapped without food, medicine, or safe passage. Satellite images analysed by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab identified mass graves and burned districts, suggesting systematic targeting of civilians. Hospitals, schools, and refugee shelters were shelled, and humanitarian groups estimate that 12 million people have now been displaced across Sudan since the conflict began in 2023.
The RSF’s emerged from the Arab-supremacist Janjaweed militias that fought in the 2003–2005 Darfur genocide, when over 300,000 people were killed and nearly 3 million displaced. Then, as now, non-Arab black-African ethnic groups such as the Masalit and Fur communities bore the brunt of the violence. The recurrence of mass atrocities in the same region underscores how cycles of impunity and weak global governance perpetuate violence. Despite International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for former Sudanese leaders like Omar Al-Bashir, accountability has remained elusive, and mechanisms for protecting civilians have failed to deter new crimes. External involvement has compounded the crisis further. Investigations by the IGO United Nations and NGO Amnesty International indicate that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has supplied weapons and logistical support to the RSF, violating the arms embargo and intensifying the conflict to achieve regional influence over fertile agricultural land and gold-mining enterprises. This further demonstrates the inability of international institutions to enforce humanitarian law or restrain proxy warfare.