29 AUG 25 - The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is building an earthen wall around El Fasher to create a “kill box” and prevent civilians fleeing the besieged city, satellite imagery suggests.
The latest report from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) found that 31km of wall had been built over recent months and that, as of August 27, construction was ongoing.
El Fasher, the last major part of Darfur not held by the RSF, has been under siege for over 16 months, with food and medical supplies all but cut off.
It is unclear how many civilians remain in the city, but the figure is believed to be at least in the tens of thousands.
Recent weeks have seen the RSF launch a number of attacks in the northwest quadrant, where the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) still has a presence, as it tries to take the city.
Yale HRL said the RSF had total control of population flows “from all directions to and from El Fasher”.
“With these berms [earthen walls], RSF is creating a literal kill box,” it said.
The report said that, between 5 May and 19 August, a 22km section of wall was built in three stages to form a semicircle around the west and north of El Fasher. At least one settlement - the village of Alsen - appeared to have been razed in the process.
On the other side of the city, to the east and southeast, construction on a separate wall began on 19 August, with imagery from 27 August showing it had reached 9km in length and that excavators were still at work at either end. The wall is bisected by the B-26, the main route out of El Fasher to the east.
The areas of the city not currently encircled by the wall - the northeast, south, and southwest - are already under RSF control.
“These berms will create physical boundaries to prevent smuggling goods like food and medicine into El Fasher or people out of El Fasher," Yale HRL said.
“In the event of mass civilian exodus, including scaling [of the walls] in desperation, RSF can easily kill civilians.”
More than a year has passed since the World Food Programme was last able to deliver aid to El Fasher. In the last few months, people in the city have been forced to eat animal food in order to survive, but even that has been running out.
Sources on the ground previously told Avaaz that those who try to flee the city are being stopped on the roads and subjected to looting, abductions, and summary execution.
Last week, the UN said at least 89 civilians were killed in RSF attacks in El Flasher and the adjoining Abu Shouk displacement camp over a 10-day period, with many of the victims targeted because of their ethnic identity.
On Friday, Human Rights Watch called on the UN Security Council to “confront the Rapid Support Forces over their ongoing siege and deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians” and to “press both warring parties over blocking access to aid”.
The RSF’s renewed effort to take El Fasher comes just months after the group attacked and razed the Zamzam displacement camp, around 10 miles to the city’s south.
The camp was previously the largest in Sudan, with an estimated population of at least 500,000 people, some of whom had nowhere to go but El Fasher following the camp’s fall.
The weekly dispatch features the latest developments, first-hand testimony, footage, photos, stats and analysis on Sudan. We can connect you with voices from the ground, experts and survivors of the war. I am available at +44 7514 796 678 / sudan@avaaz.org.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is building an earthen wall around El Fasher to create a “kill box” and prevent civilians fleeing the besieged city, satellite imagery suggests.
People caught trying to smuggle food into the besieged city of El Fasher are being “executed on sight” by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to one civilian.
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