‘We cannot hear the screams’: Sudan’s war takes horrific turn as Trump looks away

In the past week, things took an all-the-more hideous turn in El Fasher. RSF units broke through and have captured the city, triggering the panicked flight of its remaining starving civilians. The victorious militias, which are predominantly ethnically Arab, have gone on a shocking killing rampage of the local non-Arab population. The violence echoes the genocidal slaughters carried out by the Janjaweed militia – the RSF’s predecessor – in Darfur two decades ago. Eyewitnesses reported numerous incidents of summary executions, rapes and other abuse. The latest brutality follows the RSF’s earlier campaigns in other parts of Darfur, which led to the Biden administration on its way out of office declaring that the group was guilty of acts of genocide. This week, the RSF’s leader, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known by the sobriquet Hemedti, tried to assuage international observers that his outfit would investigate allegations of abuses. Hemedti’s reassurances mean little: he’s viewed by many as the man with the most blood on his hands.