Preface to this compendium, September 29, 2025
Below is a compendium of news dispatches focused on Sudan’s continuing agony, and particularly on Darfur. Remarkably, although from a wide range of sources, these reports have all appeared within the past week. It is as if the overwhelming urgency of the situation on the ground has finally galvanized serious attention to what is commonly called the “world’s greatest humanitarian crisis”—a title too long held by this beleaguered country.
The catalyst seems to be the imminent fall of El Fasher (capital of North Darfur) to the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF). For a year and a half, the RSF has laid brutal siege to the city, creating a desperate shortage of food, medicine, even water. Information coming from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (September 29, 2025) indicates that a massive drone attack will be launched soon on El Fasher from Nyala (capital of South Darfur and long under RSF control). The distance between the two cities is only 135 miles—less than an hour’s flight time for the advanced UAVs that the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
If El Fasher does fall soon, as seems increasingly likely, it will be followed by a bloodbath—a massacre of tens of thousands of non-Arab civilians and defenders who are view with contempt by the RSF, with primary support coming from the Northern Rizeigat Arab communities, but also from mercenaries coming from perhaps a dozen countries, including Chad, Niger, CAR, Libya, South Sudan, and recently, from Colombia.
Most of the reports suggest either directly or indirectly the consequences of this supremely cruel use of UAE national wealth. For despite bald denials from the Emirati leadership, the evidence of their support for the RSF is overwhelming and irrefutable—and has long been so. Indeed, the fact that it is so well-known forces us to confront the question: why have the Emiratis not been called out by the international community for their support of the RSF? Where is the voice of the UN? The European Union? This support entails massive supplies of sophisticated weaponry (including drones, jamming equipment, advanced anti-aircraft weaponry, high-tech artillery), transport vehicles, logistics, wealth, and support in generating RSF propaganda. There are no morally respectable answers to the question.
Sexual violence—long the primary mission of Project Zamzam—has also forced its way as an issue command to international attention, and this compendium concludes with a report of this week from Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The record of the RSF in this ghastly arena is utterly savage, and is laid bare by MSF.
All pieces appearing here have been foreshortened to a greater or lesser degree; the full compendium, with reports in their original length, is available upon request (ereeves@smith.edu). Two longer pieces from the Washington Post of this past week give important overviews of many issues and appear together toward the end of this compendium
All interpolated comments here (in bold, blue italics) are mine.
***********
Tribal leaders warn of planned RSF attack on North Darfur areas
Sudan Tribune, September 27, 2025 (EL GENEINA)
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are planning to attack three localities in North Darfur that shelter tens of thousands of displaced people, tribal leaders and military sources said on Saturday. The warnings came after RSF-affiliated media released videos of a commander, Idris Hassan, announcing plans to attack the border town of al-Tina. Military sources told Sudan Tribune they have detected large RSF troop buildups in the region, positioning for an offensive against the Zaghawa ethnic group’s territories in al-Tina, Umm Baru, and Karnoi.
[Tina (Darfur)/Tiné (Chad) is the new location for Team Zamzam in its continuing effort to provide assistance to victims of sexual violence and to assist with all phases of humanitarian relief, including providing food to the most desperately needy. Having been forced to flee Zamzam IDP camp, the Team is just now getting fully underway in this new setting–ER]
Sudan’s army and allied local forces have mobilized to repel a potential assault, but their positions near the Chad border lack stable supply routes, according to local media reports.
A Zaghawa tribal leader accused the RSF of aiming to displace the local population and seize their land. “This expected offensive is an extension of previous attacks,” Mohamed Mansour of the Zaghawa Shura Council told Sudan Tribune.
Mansour charged the RSF with committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in other parts of the state earlier this year, forcing thousands to flee into Chad. The RSF also launched a drone strike on Al-Tina last August.
[Who is Idriss Hassan? He was one of the RSF commanders during the 2023 genocidal assault on the Masalit people of El Geneina, capital of West Darfur. It was reported on in detail by Reuters in December 2023:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/sudan-politics-darfur-violence
Survivors identified several other key players who led RSF and militia operations in the city: Idriss Hassan, a former RSF commander of West Darfur and currently a senior RSF officer; Massar Aseel, a top Arab tribal leader; the deputy of the slain governor, Al Tijani Karshoum; Arab militia leader Moussa Angir; and a militiaman known as Marfaeen, or “the Hyena.”
UAE is “main backer” behind Sudan war, intelligence officer tells Sky News
In an exclusive interview in an undisclosed location, Sky News learns many of the planes landing in South Darfur are allegedly bringing weapons from the Middle Eastern country – something its government vehemently denies.
Sky News | 26 September 2025
Africa correspondent @YousraElbagir
[The most recent and perhaps the most authoritative connecting of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF), guilty of massive ethnically-targeted destruction of many non-Arab tribal groups in Darfur—ER]
Dozens dead from hunger and disease as devastation decimates North Darfur
Radio Dabanga, September 29, 2025 | EL FASHER / ABU SHOUK CAMP / ZAMZAM CAMP
The emergency room of the Abu Shouk displacement camp in North Darfur’s capital of El Fasher, has reported the deaths of at least 73 children under five and 22 elderly people in just 40 days, as hunger and disease ravage displaced communities. In a statement by the Abu Shouk Emergency Room yesterday, they confirmed that the victims were displaced residents who had fled from El Fasher’s northern neighbourhoods to shelters and residential areas inside Abu Shouk. The group described the humanitarian and security situation as “worrying”, pointing to acute shortages of water, food, and health services. It warned that community kitchens that had been sustaining thousands, have stopped working due to lack of funding. “About eight people are dying every day,” the chamber said, noting that the cost of a single meal for 20 families now amounts to SDG 7 million.
The emergency room cautioned that unburied bodies are piling up in streets and neighbourhoods due to insecurity, risking a major health disaster. It urged international organisations to secure safe humanitarian corridors for civilians trapped in the conflict.
The Sudan Doctors’ Network confirmed a sharp rise in deaths caused by malnutrition in El Fasher, with 23 people, including five pregnant women, dying in September alone. [This is almost certainly a vast undercounting—ER] [The Doctors’ Network] accused the international community and the United Nations of complicity through silence and inaction “despite the clarity of the tragedy.”
********
The UN report described a pattern of indiscriminate [RSF] shelling, air raids, and drone strikes on densely populated areas. In April alone, RSF attacks on El Fasher and surrounding camps killed more than 270 displaced people in Abu Shouk and Zamzam camp. In March, SAF airstrikes on Tora market in North Darfur killed at least 350 civilians. The UN also documented 990 unlawful killings outside hostilities, including summary executions. Both the SAF and RSF stand accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings, including the execution of children as young as 14. In one documented case, RSF fighters executed at least 30 men in Omdurman on 27 April.
[Again, it must be emphasized that the UN figures are gross underestimates; there is no UN- or internationally-supervised data collection in most locations in Sudan—certainly in Darfur. See immediately below a dispatch giving some sense of what is yet to be found and counted—ER]
DARFUR NETWORK FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
#Update urgent: September 27, 2025 | https://x.com/DNforHR/status/1971969928254140600
Unidentified Bodies Discovered and Buried Between Eastern Al-Tawila and Western El Fasher, North Darfur September 27, 2025.
The local emergency response team in Al-Tawila today reported the discovery of several deceased, unidentified individuals in the forested area between eastern Al-Tawila and western El Fasher in North Darfur. [There are likely thousands of people who died in the bush fleeing from Zamzam and El Fasher—ER]
In line with humanitarian principles and community social responsibility, the team conducted dignified burials to preserve the inherent dignity of the deceased. A spokesperson for the team stated: “We are deeply concerned by the continuing discovery of unidentified victims and the uncertainty facing families of the missing.
Siege of Sudan’s El Fasher escalates with near-total encirclement, Yale report finds
Sudan Tribune, September 27, 2025 (KHARTOUM)
The siege of El Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur region has severely escalated, with paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) nearly completing a total encirclement of the city with defensive walls, according to a new report from Yale University researchers.
A network of earthen walls, or berms, built by the RSF now stretches for over 68 kilometres around El-Fasher, leaving only a 3 – 4 kilometre gap before the city is fully enclosed, the report published on Friday said. Construction appeared to be ongoing, as evidenced by satellite imagery from September 26, which showed excavators present near the city’s airfield. The RSF is also hardening its control over routes out of the city, the report found.
The tightening siege coincides with the first visual confirmation from satellite imagery of “significant numbers” of people trying to flee the city on foot. The RSF appears to be reinforcing its assault, with imagery from September 15 showing a convoy of at least 18 light technical vehicles on a road heading towards El Fasher.
[RSF refusal to allow civilians safe passage from El Fasher is a clear portent of massive human slaughter in the offing: targeting the Zaghawa and members of other non-Arab tribal groups, the impending RSF attack could result in tens of thousands of murders—ER]
Seven killed in shelling of UNICEF compound in Sudan’s El Fasher
Sudan Tribune, September 25, 2025 (KHARTOUM)
At least seven displaced civilians sheltering in a UNICEF compound in the besieged city of al-Fasher were killed by shelling on Tuesday, the U.N. children’s agency said in a statement. The attack is part of a “series of events” that highlights the extreme dangers facing civilians and aid efforts in the capital of North Darfur state. According to a statement from UNICEF Sudan Representative Sheldon Yett, the main building within the compound came under “repeated attack” on September 24, killing at least seven and injuring others who had sought refuge there.
The shelling followed an incident on September 20, when armed individuals entered the same compound, seizing communications equipment and vehicles. “In the days that followed, the armed individuals dismantled and made alterations to the vehicles, which were clearly marked with UNICEF logos,” the statement said.
RSF drone strikes: Deadly capabilities as they advance on El Fasher
Ayin Network | 22 September 2025
As the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces inch closer to seizing El Fasher and the surrounding areas of North Darfur State, so too does their reliance on deadly drone strikes. On Friday, a suspected RSF drone strike around 4:30 am hit the Mashi al-Safiya Mosque, killing an estimated 75 people during their dawn prayers, local sources told Ayin. The mosque, now in rubble, is based between Darja Aula and the Abu Shouk Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, just north of El Fasher’s airport. According to a statement from members of the El Fasher Resistance Committee, many bodies remained unburied around the rubble because there were not enough shrouds available for burial.
This latest drone strike follows a recent pattern of sophisticated drone strikes by the RSF, monitored by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL). According to Yale’s satellite research between 1 and 6 May 2025, the RSF have 13 drones and 16 launch platforms positioned north of Nyala airport, South Darfur State. The drone models are likely the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 suicide drone or possibly the Chinese-made Sunflower-200 kamikaze drone, Yale reported. Both models maintain an operational range of up to 2,500 kilometres, putting every city in Sudan within striking distance of Nyala.
Abu Shouk
While Nyala highlights the RSF’s growing technical capabilities, the RSF’s onslaught against El Fasher demonstrates the brutal consequences of their military tactics. Between August 30 and September 10, 2025, Yale documented over 50 bombings in the Abu Shouk IDP camp. Twenty-two of these munition impacts struck Naivasha Market, the camp’s main commercial hub. The damage is accompanied by an alarming rise in civilian deaths. In Al-Rahma cemetery, Yale identified 190 new burial mounds in just six weeks. A further 50 graves appeared at another cemetery near the former UNAMID compound in Abu Shouk. Local sources have reported daily fatalities from shelling, famine, and lack of medical care.
No safe havens left
Political analyst Dallia Abdelmoneim said the RSF’s actions follow a consistent and deliberate pattern. “The RSF always, without fail, after a military advance or victory, engages in a wave of massacres and violence. It’s in their handbook and the same is being carried out in El Fasher,” she said. “The racial- and ethnic-driven assaults by the RSF in the Darfur region are very well documented.” From there, Abdelmoneim adds, the RSF displace former residents and control the area under their own system of ethnic hierarchy.
Yale’s recent research reveals the troubling reality that there are now no safe havens left in the El-Fasher area for civilians targeted by the Rapid Support Forces. If the artillery fire does not reach people, the drones will. Without urgent intervention, Raymond says, the conflict risks deepening into a war fought with foreign-supplied technology, where civilians remain the primary targets.
Systematic sexual violence plagues Sudan’s women two years into conflict
KAMPALA, September 25, 2025 (Sudan Tribune) | https://sudantribune.com/archives/305400
More than two years after the war in Sudan broke out on April 15, 2023, women and girls face a catastrophic reality of systematic sexual violence and grave abuses, amid the absence of protection mechanisms and a disregard for their suffering at both local and international levels.
The latest statistics from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have revealed shocking figures, documenting 368 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence involving at least 521 victims as of May 31, 2025. According to the OHCHR statement, more than half of these cases were rape, including gang rape, often targeting displaced women and girls. The data indicates that more than 70% of these documented incidents were attributed to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The United Nations stressed that the figures provided reflect only “the tip of the iceberg,” noting that hundreds of other incidents remain unreported due to stigma, fear of reprisal, and the collapse of the medical and legal systems.
[Yet again it must be stressed that the data behind these figures is woefully inadequate and can’t begin to generate figures that truly represent the scale of sexual violence—especially in Darfur, where incidents of RSF rapes of girls and women account for much more than “70%” of such violence—ER]
*********
Meanwhile, Hala al-Karib, the Regional Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA Network), revealed the prevalence of sexual violence among displaced women from villages and rural areas near North Kordofan state, according to statistics from hospitals in El Obeid… She stated that most rape crimes in North Kordofan are committed indiscriminately by the RSF, even in areas considered RSF recruitment zones, where women and girls suffer from systematic rape. She reported that there are no exceptions in crimes of sexual violence, as women from all backgrounds in the villages and cities of North Kordofan are subjected to rape.
North Darfur reels under relentless fighting, mass displacement, and deadly mosque attack
Radio Dabanga, September 24, 2025 | EL FASHER
El Fasher remains under relentless attack as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continue their clashes with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the Joint Forces, and allied groups, leaving the North Darfur capital paralysed and forcing thousands of civilians to flee. For 17 months, the RSF has pounded El Fasher with artillery and drone strikes, killing and wounding scores. Residents report that the past ten days have seen a sharp escalation, with entire markets flattened and mosques shuttered after direct hits.
The destruction of Abu Qurun market in western El Fasher last week has dealt another blow to civilians, who had relied on the trading hub after earlier bombardments knocked out the city’s central, livestock, and main markets. “There is nothing left. Every market in the city is now out of service,” a resident told Radio Dabanga.
UN Fact-Finding Mission urges immediate action after deadly mosque strike in El Fasher
September 24, 2025
Most mosques in El Fasher have shuttered under fire. The El Safiya Mosque and nearby homes in the El Daraja Awla neighbourhood were struck at dawn on 19 September by what witnesses said was a drone attack, reportedly carried out by RSF, killing at least 75 worshippers, including 11 children, and injuring many others, according to a UNICEF statement yesterday.
The UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan condemned the strike, with Chair Mohamed Chande Othman stating: “Killing civilians, including children, while in prayer in a mosque shows a blatant disregard for the most fundamental principles of international law. Those responsible must be held accountable.” The Mission warned that El Fasher remains under siege and at “grave risk of further attacks,” calling for immediate action to protect civilians.
[What action is being called for that is adequate to respond to and deter future attacks? The UN skirts the hard questions—ER]
Battles on four axes in North Kordofan, intensity decreases in El Fasher
Radio Dabanga, September 18, 2025 | EL OBEID / EL FASHER
The battle zones in North Kordofan yesterday (Image: Google Maps adapted RD)
Fighting in North Kordofan escalated in four axes, while the city of El Fasher witnessed limited clashes in a number of axes as artillery shelling continued. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said on Wednesday that they had repelled an attack on the Rahid El Nuba area in North Kordofan. It pointed out that a large number of army commanders were killed and vehicles and quantities of weapons and military equipment were seized. Meanwhile, social media circulated news that an officer with the rank of colonel was killed during the battles in North Kordofan.
Sudan: Civilians targeted by systematic sexual violence: “Darfur’s survivors face relentless atrocities. The world cannot look away.”
MiddleEastMonitor, September 25, 2025
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières – MSF) announced on Wednesday that it has provided care to hundreds of survivors of sexual violence in North Darfur, western Sudan, over the past four months. Most of the attacks were reportedly carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
In a series of posts on X, MSF said it treated more than 600 victims and survivors of sexual violence in the region between April and August 2025.
It is important to note here that the number is for those were treated; it can be extremely difficult to reach, let alone treat effectively, victims of sexual violence—especially girls. “Project Zamzam” has provided ample evidence of the challenge to reaching victims, some of whom speak here of their experience with the counselors or the project—ER]
MSF highlighted that 97 per cent of the perpetrators were not civilians, suggesting the violence was carried out primarily by armed groups. On 20 September 2025, the UN Human Rights Office stated that Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters had committed systematic rapes of women and girls during the assault on Zamzam camp.
One documented case involved 12 fighters raping five women in front of their children.
According to Sudan Tribune, RSF forces took control of Zamzam camp, located 12 km southwest of El Fasher, in April 2025, during a major ground offensive that followed heavy shelling and drone strikes.
Why Kordofan is key in Sudan’s civil war
BBC, September 24, 2025
Wedged between Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, and the region of Darfur in the west, the Kordofan states have become the latest frontline in a civil war that’s been raging since 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The battle for the region – which is made up of three states and has a population of almost eight million – has intensified since the army focused on regaining the territory from the RSF as it pushes towards Darfur.
The BBC has managed to get rare access to South Kordofan, where people are paying a heavy price in this war, with a crippled healthcare system and inadequate aid.
See: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cvg4kw7rnveo
Spread of diseases overwhelms Khartoum hospitals in war-ravaged Sudan
KHARTOUM, Sept 24 (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Sudanese people have fallen victim to dengue fever and other diseases, Sudan’s health minister said, as seasonal rains further test infrastructure and hospitals devastated by conflict. As millions of people displaced by fighting return to their homes in Sudan while others continue to flee, the unusually high spread of diseases like dengue fever, cholera, opens new tab and malaria this year highlights the hidden costs of almost 30 months of war.
Starvation or execution: Sudanese under siege face “death everywhere”
Families in El Fasher are eating animal feed. Children have been raped while foraging for food. Those who try to escape have been kidnapped and killed.
Washington Post, September 20, 2025
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/09/18/sudan-war-el-fashir-rsf/
For the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside the besieged Sudanese city of El Fashir, suffering waits at every turn. They face death by starvation, disease or bombardment if they stay; those who leave have been kidnapped, raped and tortured. If the city falls, rights groups warn, it could trigger the largest bloodbath yet in the country’s catastrophic civil war. El Fashir is the last city in the western Darfur region outside the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary that has been battling the Sudanese army since April 2023. Around 11,000 soldiers and allied fighters are now struggling to hold the city, a last refuge for more than a quarter of a million people, many of whom fled massacres and ruined villages in other parts of Darfur.
The city shudders under daily attacks: Witnesses described children in makeshift shelters being torn apart by shells. El Fasher once had 36 clinics and hospitals; only a single one remains partly operational, and many doctors have been forced into hiding. The city’s water plant has been targeted repeatedly, and cholera is rampaging through a population crippled by hunger.
The Washington Post spoke or exchanged voice notes with a doctor, a volunteer emergency responder, three aid workers and six civilians. Some provided video and photos to support their accounts but asked that they not be published, fearing it could make them a target for the RSF. Their stories align with statements from aid agencies and other reporting on the situation inside El Fasher. “There is death everywhere,” said one resident, speaking like others in this article on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The RSF’s actions “may amount to the crime against humanity of extermination,” the United Nations declared this month.
Families inside the city said they have been reduced to eating leaves and animal feed. They recounted women and children being captured and sexually assaulted while foraging for wild plants. There have been no international aid deliveries since April. In the months since, two U.N. truck convoys have been bombed while trying to break the siege. Five people were killed in the first attack. The World Food Program (WFP) says it is readying another convoy in the event of a ceasefire.
But there’s no sign of one. Last week, the United States, along with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, appealed for a three-month truce “to enable the swift entry of humanitarian aid to all parts of Sudan.” The military-led government welcomed the statement. The RSF issued no public response.
Nearly 600,000 people have fled El Fasher and its surrounding settlements over the last 16 months, the U.N. says. Some of the sprawling camps originally set up to house people displaced by Darfur’s genocide two decades ago are now abandoned. Roads leaving the city are lined with bodies, according to families who recently escaped. Fleeing civilians are often forced at gunpoint into makeshift RSF detention centers and held for exorbitant ransoms few can afford.
The deadly vise around El Fashir can be seen from space: Satellite imagery from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab shows the RSF has constructed 31 kilometers of earthen walls encircling the city to tighten its grip. The paramilitary “is creating a literal kill box,” the researchers noted, warning of an imminent massacre. In May 2024, when the RSF took El Geneina, a smaller town to the west, between 10,000 to 15,000 people were killed, the U.N. said.
In the meantime, El Fasher is starving. Families said they are surviving on crushed peanut waste from oil extraction — normally used for animal feed — and wild greens. Inflation has driven markets to collapse. Flour is an impossible dream at $30 per kilo, residents said. The same amount of millet goes for $53. Searching for food is dangerous. Men who move around are often killed, residents said, while women and children are increasingly vulnerable. One man, Abdullah, said his daughter and niece had gone to the city limits to gather weeds when they were attacked by RSF gunmen.
“My 14-year-old daughter was raped along with two others,” he said, sobbing so badly he had to end the call. His 16-year-old niece was hospitalized in critical condition, he said, and her mother was killed by an artillery shell while she was being treated. “She was left alone to face her pain,” said Abdullah. His daughter was too ashamed to come home, he said, and he struggled to comfort her. “She cried in a way that no ordinary person could imagine. … I told her that you are more honorable than them. You were forced, but they are cowards.” He begged the international community to send food. Without it, Abdullah said, “we will all die, and shame will follow you forever.”
Relentless attacks
Abdullah’s neighbor Fatima, 31, is a mother of four — but only her eldest daughter is with her now. Her family fled to El Fasher in April after RSF forces attacked the Zamzam displacement camp on the outskirts of the city. Fighters fired on panicking civilians as they ran, she said, and she was separated from her three young sons, ages 10, 7 and 4. Her injured husband went to look for them in July, as soon as he could walk again, and never returned. Zamzam, once home to a half-million people, is deserted. Some 1,500 civilians were killed in the April attack, the U.N. estimates.
Surface-to-air missiles and deadly drones spread on Sudan’s battlefields
Fighters now possess antiaircraft weapons that could threaten civilian air traffic and what appears to be a Chinese surface-to-air missile system, experts said.
The Washington Post, September 29, 2025
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/09/29/sudan-war-weapons-rsf-darfur/
Advanced weapons are pouring into Sudan, fueling a ruinous civil war and endangering security across the region, according to an analysis of recently seized arms caches viewed by Washington Post reporters, interviews with officials and a confidential report from independent experts that was shared by Sudan’s intelligence agency. Paramilitary fighters now possess antiaircraft weapons that could threaten civilian air traffic, drones strikingly similar to those used by Yemen’s Houthi rebels and what appears to be a sophisticated Chinese surface-to-air missile system — altering the dynamics of the battlefield, analysts say, and prolonging a conflict that is likely to have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
What began as a power struggle between Sudan’s two most powerful men has devolved into a sprawling, hellishly complex war that analysts say threatens the long-term security of countries well beyond its borders. It has sucked in fighters from Libya, Chad, Mali, South Sudan and the Central African Republic — even from Colombia — along with weapons that came from Turkey, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
“In 10 years, American and European leaders are going to regret their inaction on Sudan,” said Justin Lynch, the managing director of Conflict Insights Group. “A failed state on the Red Sea that is awash with predatory Islamist militias, advanced weapons and genocidal leaders will imperil the region for generations.”
On a recent trip to Sudan, a Post reporter saw piles of weaponry that the military said was abandoned by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary during their retreat from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. There were SA-7s — a type of Man-Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS) — drones, jamming equipment, guided anti-tank missiles, 120mm mortar shells, and truckloads of ammunition and 40mm phosphorus rounds, many still in their original packaging.
The RSF — accused by the United States and United Nations of war crimes and crimes against humanity — also appear to have acquired a truck-mounted antiaircraft system manufactured in China, Sudanese security officials said, and drones that bear the hallmarks of those produced by the Houthis, according to the confidential report….
And as the front lines shift, antiaircraft weapons have been abandoned, raising concerns that they could be turned against civilian aircraft — or trafficked across the porous borders of the Sahel, home to numerous militant groups aligned with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Presented with The Post’s findings, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for more robust enforcement of the U.S. arms embargo and new sanctions on companies profiting from the conflict.
“The flow of weapons into Sudan is fueling this devastating war,” she said, “and the international community must do more to stop it.”
*********
A cache of 81mm mortar shells seized from an RSF convoy in November were manufactured in Bulgaria, which later told U.N. investigators it had exported them to the UAE, Reuters reported. In 2024, the Emiratis built an airfield in neighboring Chad for the RSF to use as a launchpad for drones, pretending it was a humanitarian hub, the New York Times reported. The UAE is heavily invested in Sudan’s gold mines and agricultural tracts, and it has long-standing ties to the RSF leader, who helped send Sudanese mercenaries to fight in Yemen’s civil war.
[The evidence of the UAE’s massive military, logistical, and financial support for the RSF is overwhelming. The bald denial by UAE officials is a measure of how secure they feel the Emirates are from Western criticism or sanctions—ER]
“We categorically reject any claims of providing any form of support to either warring party,” the Emirati foreign ministry said in a statement to The Post.
[To date there have been no consequences for the Emiratis as they simply dismiss the overwhelming evidence of their massive support for the RSF; this must change if peace is to come to Sudan—ER]
As Sudan’s air war intensified last year, the military purchased top-of-the-line drones directly from Baykar — Turkey’s largest defense company — an upgrade to its existing fleet of armed Iranian drones. The new drones played a key role in the military offensive to retake the capital, which culminated in March. Now, it seems, the RSF has a way to counter them. In the past two months, the group has shot down at least three of the military’s Turkish drones, according to footage posted online by paramilitary fighters and analyzed by experts at The Post’s request.
None of the drones shot down were loitering, which would have made them easier targets, according to a former regional security official who remains in touch with parties to the conflict, speaking, like others in this story, on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive details. Two, he said, were above 20,000 feet.
“The technical proficiency that you are seeing is beyond RSF normal capabilities,” he said. “And all those systems are mobile.” “You could get one lucky shot” with a shoulder-mounted missile, said a former U.S. official with experience in the region, but several would be unlikely, indicating “more advanced air defenses.” A Sudanese security official told The Post that the RSF used a Chinese FK-2000 truck-mounted antiaircraft system to take down the drones. And a TikTok video posted by an RSF fighter after a shoot-down on Sept. 14 shows a rocket booster matching those used on the FK-2000 missiles, according to Jeremy Binnie, the Middle East defense specialist for Janes, a defense intelligence company.
There’s no record of an FK-2000 being sold to Sudan, but the Paris-based news service Africa Intelligence reported in April that the UAE donated two such systems to Chad last year. Chad’s government spokesperson, Gassim Chérif, did not respond to a request for comment, and the Emirati Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions about the FK-2000.
***********
Sudan was already awash with less advanced, but still dangerous, antiaircraft weaponry. In May, The Post saw shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missiles, often called MANPADS, including SA-7s, in a substantial RSF stockpile captured by the military after retaking Khartoum.
The SA-7s were so new they were still in paper wrapping, though there were no labels identifying their place of origin…In its report for Sudan’s intelligence service, Conflict Armament Research documented 19 surface-to-air missiles that the military said it had recovered from the RSF, manufactured in both China and Bulgaria.
Sudan: Civilians targeted by systematic sexual violence: “Darfur’s survivors face relentless atrocities. The world cannot look away.”
September 25, 2025 | Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/sudan-civilians-targeted-systematic-sexual-violence
In April, the armed group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked Sudan’s largest displacement camp, Zamzam, triggering mass flight. An estimated 380,000 people fled to Tawila, where Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams received more than 300 victims and survivors of sexual violence in the five weeks that followed. Here, an MSF midwife recalls the harrowing story of a mother and daughter attacked while trying to flee: A driver was ordered to run over the mother, then moments after, the daughter was raped repeatedly by the one who gave the order.
April 2025 is seared into Anna’s* memory. Anna, a midwife with 18 years of experience with MSF, was urgently called to the emergency room, where victims of sexual violence were arriving in large numbers following RSF’s assault on Zamzam camp.
“There was a smell I will never forget,” said Anna. “The room was filled with women shouting, most of them seeking care after being raped. And in the middle of it all, a girl sat in silence, barely daring to meet my eyes.”
“I asked, ‘What is happening? What is this smell?’ A woman answered, ‘There is a dead body here.’ It was at that moment that the girl finally lifted her gaze. I asked her, ‘Are you okay?’ And she replied, ‘Will you come with me so we can talk?’”
The girl explained to Anna that her abuser first asked if she belonged to the Zaghawa tribe. “I denied it; the commander kept insisting,” said the girl. “My mother tried to defend me. He ordered his driver to run her over, killing her instantly, right before my eyes. After that, he took me to a place and raped me again and again.”
We placed my mother’s body on a donkey and continued our journey toward Tawila.
Survivor at Tawila Hospital
“It was only when he went after other people that his driver brought me back to my dead mother and the others escaping with us,” the girl added. “We placed my mother’s body on a donkey and continued our journey toward Tawila.”
Since the outbreak of Sudan’s war in April 2023, non-Arab ethnic groups, including the Masalit, Zaghawa, and Fur—many of whom survived the violence in Darfur two decades ago—have been particularly targeted. The RSF, which is besieging El Fasher and controls much of the Darfur region, dominates most exit routes from the city and attacks those trying to flee, who face the threats of rape, torture, and even killings along the way. MSF published a report detailing the situation in early July, titled Besieged, Attacked, Starved: Mass Atrocities in El Fasher and Zamzam, Sudan.
Shifting patterns in sexual violence cases
By the end of June, MSF had reinforced referral pathways through four community-based centers in displacement camps, allowing better engagement with communities. At Tawila Hospital, only nine victims received care between January and March 2025. That number rose sharply to 121 between April and June, and reached 339 in July and August. This increase is due in part to improved access to care through the strengthened referral system, and indicative of the widespread crisis of sexual violence in Darfur.
Many victims reported brutal assaults by multiple armed perpetrators while attempting to flee. Assaults did not stop with the attack on Zamzam; every week there are new episodes of violence in and around El Fasher, such as increased bombings and attacks at Abu Shouk displacement camp, followed by the arrival of more survivors in Tawila.
Anna has observed a shift in the patterns of sexual violence. “In April and May, most survivors were women and girls arriving within 72 hours of the attacks,” she said. “By August, they came forward later with support from our community centers.”
“Sexual violence against men remains largely unseen,” Anna continued. “Stigma and fear keep many silent, but there are hints during conversations and consultations when people seek care for other issues that this is ongoing.”
Protection, care, and accountability are urgently needed
Despite immense barriers to accessing medical care, over 600 survivors of sexual violence sought care at MSF-supported health facilities between April and August 2025 in the conflict-ravaged region of North Darfur.
The brutality in Darfur cannot be ignored. It must be documented and urgent action must be taken. Humanitarian donors, organizations, and all stakeholders must work to restore and scale up services provided to survivors, and strengthen protection and accountability measures. Civilians must be protected, and perpetrators of sexual violence must be held accountable. Survivors urgently need comprehensive, free, and timely support … Darfur’s survivors face relentless atrocities. The world cannot look away.
Anna*, MSF midwife Name changed for privacy and security