El Fasher Fell. The West Knew It Would.

Today: 28 Dead in Two Strikes

On Wednesday, March 25, 2026, two separate drone strikes hit civilian targets in Sudan. A strike on a market in the town of Saraf Omra in North Darfur state killed 22 people, including an infant, and injured 17 more. A health worker at the local clinic told Agence France-Presse that the drone struck a parked oil truck, which caught fire and spread to part of the market. A trader at the market, Hamid Suleiman, confirmed to AFP that it serves a remote area close to the border with Chad. It was not immediately clear which party was responsible for that strike.

In a separate incident, a drone struck a truck carrying civilians on a highway in an army-controlled area of North Kordofan, approximately 500 miles (800 km) east of Darfur. A hospital source in the nearby town of El Rahad told AFP that six bodies arrived, three of them charred, along with 10 wounded. The source attributed the strike to the RSF. (Source: The Guardian, March 26, 2026, citing AFP.)

Wednesday's strikes came five days after a drone struck el-Daein Teaching Hospital in East Darfur on March 20, killing 64 people and wounding 89 more, according to the World Health Organization.

The Scale: 500+ Drone-Killed Civilians in 10 Weeks

Wednesday's deaths are not isolated incidents — they are part of a documented escalation. Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated this week that over 500 civilians were killed in drone strikes in Sudan between January 1 and March 15, 2026. She noted that "the vast majority of these civilian deaths were documented in three states in the Kordofan region." (Source: UN OHCHR press briefing note, March 2026, confirmed by The Citizen, The Guardian, and UN News.)

That figure — more than 500 drone-killed civilians in 74 days — works out to an average of more than 6 per day. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) use drones. Multiple UN reports and news accounts attribute strikes to both sides; definitive attribution for individual strikes is often impossible given limited access by independent journalists to the conflict zones.

UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric described the situation as "truly horrific" in remarks this week. The UN has repeatedly urged all parties to protect civilians and ensure humanitarian access. (Source: UN News, March 2026.)

El Fasher: The Fall the Intelligence Services Predicted

The most consequential event in Sudan's civil war since its April 2023 outbreak was the fall of El Fasher — the capital of North Darfur — on October 26–27, 2025. Analysts believe up to 10,000 people were massacred in those two days, at a speed and scale the Guardian described as "the fastest and largest killing spree this century." At least 40,000 others remain unaccounted for, according to Darfur's governor, cited by the Guardian. (Source: The Guardian investigation, March 25, 2026.)

The fall followed an 18-month siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). El Fasher had been the last major city in Darfur not under RSF control, sheltering civilians from across the region. What made the city's fall extraordinary was not just the scale of the killing — it was how well anticipated it was.

A Guardian investigation published March 25, 2026 found that the killings at El Fasher were "probably the most explicitly anticipated mass atrocity event ever." The investigation describes US State Department intelligence assessments that would have triggered legal obligations to act — assessments that were buried. It describes UK intelligence reports predicting genocide that were apparently discarded. The UK had removed Darfur's original genocide — when approximately 300,000 were killed between 2003 and 2010 — from its list of recognized mass atrocities as fighting intensified. The Guardian also reported that the RSF's principal alleged backer, the United Arab Emirates, made what the investigation described as extraordinary attempts to conceal its alleged involvement in El Fasher's takeover. The UAE denies providing military support to the RSF.

The UN Verdict: Genocide

On February 20, 2026, the UN's Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan released a formal report titled "Hallmarks of Genocide in El Fasher." Its conclusions were unambiguous. (Source: UN News, February 20, 2026.)

The mission chair, Mohamed Chande Othman, stated: "The scale, coordination, and public endorsement of the operation by senior RSF leadership demonstrate that the crimes committed in and around El Fasher were not random excesses of war. They formed part of a planned and organized operation that bears the defining characteristics of genocide."

Mission member Mona Rishmawi stated: "The RSF acted with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Zaghawa and Fur communities in El Fasher. These are the hallmarks of genocide."

The evidence cited by the mission included: an 18-month siege that deliberately deprived civilians of food, water, medical care, and humanitarian assistance; mass killings and widespread sexual violence; arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearances; and explicit statements by RSF fighters recorded by survivors. The report quoted RSF fighters as saying — according to survivor testimony — phrases targeting specific ethnic groups including "We want to eliminate anything black from Darfur."

The Zaghawa and Fur are among the largest non-Arab ethnic communities in Sudan's western Darfur region. The UN mission noted that the conduct at El Fasher was "an aggravation of earlier patterns" but "on a far more lethal scale." It warned that absent accountability, the risk of further genocidal acts remains "serious and ongoing." (Source: UN News, citing the fact-finding mission report, February 2026.)

The War: Now in Its Fourth Year

Sudan's civil war began on April 15, 2023, when fighting erupted in Khartoum between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF — two factions that had jointly carried out the 2021 military coup but then fell out over how the RSF would eventually be integrated into the formal military command.

The conflict has since spread across large swathes of the country. Key figures on the scale of the crisis, as of March 2026:

• More than 11.6 million people have been internally displaced within Sudan, according to UNHCR — with an additional approximately 4.3 million having fled to neighboring countries, for a total of roughly 13.6 million uprooted, out of a population of approximately 51 million. (Source: UNHCR Sudan situation page; UN News, January 2026.)
• Estimates of total deaths range from tens of thousands to more than 400,000, according to multiple sources cited by The Guardian. The wide range reflects the extreme difficulty of documentation in a country where independent journalism access is severely restricted.
• Large areas of Sudan face famine risk, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), cited by The Guardian, March 26, 2026.
• More than 500 civilians killed by drone strikes alone between January 1 and March 15, 2026. (Source: UN OHCHR.)
• More than 10,000 believed massacred in El Fasher in October 2025. (Source: The Guardian, citing analyst estimates.)

Why the World Isn't Watching

Sudan's war receives substantially less international media coverage than its scale warrants. Three structural factors explain most of it.

Strategic irrelevance to major powers. Sudan has no NATO members as parties to the conflict, no significant Western military presence, and no energy infrastructure of global consequence. There is no Sudanese equivalent of the Strait of Hormuz. The RSF's alleged patron, the UAE, is a Gulf Arab state whose relationship with Western governments is complex enough that direct confrontation is avoided.

Access. Sudan's conflict zones are among the most restricted in the world for independent journalists. Much of what is known comes through local civil society groups like Sudan's Emergency Lawyers, UN monitors operating at a distance, and satellite imagery analysis. The Guardian's investigation into El Fasher relied on survivor accounts, internal documents, and the testimony of people who escaped the siege.

Timing. The war escalated sharply in 2023–2024 while global attention was already stretched across Ukraine and Gaza. The Iran war beginning in February 2026 has further compressed available humanitarian funding and diplomatic bandwidth. The UN's Sudan humanitarian appeal has been chronically underfunded — reportedly receiving less than 40% of requested funds in prior years, according to The Guardian. That figure could not be independently confirmed against a specific UN source for this article.

The Accountability Gap

There is no active international peace process for Sudan. There is no ceasefire in effect. There is no significant international military presence protecting civilians. The African Union and Arab League have attempted mediation at various points; none has produced durable results.

The UN Fact-Finding Mission's genocide finding carries legal and moral weight but no enforcement mechanism. The International Criminal Court has issued previous arrest warrants related to Darfur — for former President Omar al-Bashir, among others — none of which have been executed. There is no current indication that the RSF's leadership faces any concrete accountability process.

The Guardian's investigation raises a pointed question about whether Western governments had an obligation to act under genocide prevention frameworks — and chose not to. The US has previously described the Darfur genocide as genocide, triggering certain legal obligations under the Genocide Convention. Whether the events at El Fasher in October 2025 triggered equivalent obligations is a question the investigation frames without definitively answering, given the classified nature of the intelligence involved.

What is documented, publicly and formally, is the UN's finding: the RSF committed genocide at El Fasher. That finding was published February 20, 2026. The drone strikes continue.