From the Skies Above, Sudan’s Bloodshed Is Visible, a Horror No One Can Pretend Not to See.

The massacres in El Fasher, carried out by the RSF and fuelled by its UAE backers will end only when the world acts.

What unfolded over 18 months reached a horrific climax last week when the RSF captured El Fasher. Mass killings followed. Survivors say almost 500 people were slaughtered in a single maternity hospital. Others tell of summary executions in the streets. Satellite images now show blood soaked ground, the violence so swift and brutal that monitors compare the first hours to the opening of the Rwandan genocide.

El Fasher had been a last refuge for hundreds of thousands displaced from other fighting; the city was walled in, starved, and then attacked. Those who tried to flee risked death and rape; those who stayed were bombed and reduced to eating animal feed. This is a turning point in a war that began in April 2023, a battle not between a state and a loose militia, but between two heavily armed forces: the SAF and the RSF, the latter grown from the Janjaweed into a well equipped army.

Since the war began, millions have been uprooted, an estimated 150,000 killed, and more than 30 million people now need urgent aid. In Darfur the RSF has pursued ethnic cleansing, slaughtering civilians in displacement camps and targeting non Arab communities. Videos show locals begging for mercy as commanders promise none: “I will never have mercy on you,” one said before a killing.

This calamity is not accidental. The RSF’s arsenal 4x4 “technicals,” drones, weapons has been sustained by outside sponsors, notably the UAE, which profits from mines and gold in RSF areas while denying involvement. Other international actors and arms flows have turned a domestic tragedy into a regional disaster.

These crimes are visible from space; ignorance is no longer plausible. Those with leverage over the RSF’s backers who stay silent share responsibility. The majority of El Fasher’s people are trapped in a killing field. Every minute counts.