The world has again failed to help Darfur

Accounts are emerging of mass atrocities being committed in a major city in the Darfur region of Sudan. But in contrast with the global outrage two decades ago about genocide in Darfur, there is far less attention on the region today.

- Nicholas D Kristof

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, reported on Oct 29 that "more than 460 patients and companions at Saudi Maternity Hospital" had been killed in the city of El Fasher.

Video clips of executions and other abuses are also circulating online, and while it is not always possible to verify them, the BBC has geolocated at least one to the city. The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab has also reported "evidence of mass killings" based on satellite photos that appear to show bodies and the city's sand stained with blood.

The massacres followed the seizure of El Fasher after a long siege by the Rapid Support Forces, a militia that is battling the Sudanese Armed Forces in a civil war that has claimed as many as 400,000 lives, many of them women and children.

While both sides have been accused of war crimes, the United States has described the actions of the Rapid Support Forces as genocide.