The horror of El Fasher

It unfolded in plain sight over 18 months.

- Nesrine Malik

The city of El Fasher in the Darfur region of Sudan, besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fell to the militia group last week, and what has followed is a catastrophe.

Mass killings are under way. The RSF has embarked on a killing spree of civilians so severe that images of blood saturating the ground have been picked up by satellite. The speed and intensity of the killings in the immediate aftermath of the fall of El Fasher has already been compared by war monitors to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide.

And this is just the beginning. El Fasher was the Sudanese military's last remaining stronghold in Darfur, and its fall marks a grave turning point in Sudan's war. Now two and a half years long, the fight for control of the country between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF has been brutal and relentless.