Sudanese Paramilitary Group Declares Parallel Government as 400,000 Flee Offensive

New York Times

16-04-2025

A Sudanese paramilitary group declared its own government on Wednesday, even as its fighters pressed an all-out offensive on a city in the western Darfur region that has sent hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing from a famine-stricken camp.
The announcement of a parallel government by the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., stoked fears that Sudan's two-year civil war is rapidly pushing the country toward a potentially disastrous territorial split. The R.S.F. controls much of western and southern Sudan, while the military holds the north and east, including the capital Khartoum. Both sides have been accused of atrocities.
The R.S.F. leader, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, gave few details about the composition of what he called his 'government of peace and unity,' other than to say it would include a wide range of ethnic groups reflecting 'the true face of Sudan.'
Such calls for inclusivity echo longstanding demands by Sudanese pro democracy activists, who oppose the military's tightfisted grip on power. But as often in Sudan's brutal conflict, the R.S.F.'s high-minded rhetoric was at odds with the actions of its troops.
The paramilitaries launched a large-scale offensive on Friday, storming the Zamzam camp in El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur that the R.S.F. does not control, as part of a broader assault. On Tuesday, the United Nations said that at least 300 people had been killed and as many as 400,000 others forced to flee the camp in a matter of days.
Zamzam, which housed at least 500,000 people and where a famine was declared last August, is now largely empty, according to aid workers. They say that at least 30,000 people have fled to Tawila, 50 miles by road to the west — with many arriving dehydrated, malnourished and traumatized by the scenes they witnessed in the camp.
'They have nothing but the clothes they're wearing, nothing to eat, nothing to drink,' Marion Ramstein, an emergency field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, said in an email. 'Many were in shock. They spoke of so many killings and corpses.'
Doctors Without Borders closed its own operations in Zamzam in February, saying that shelling, attacks on ambulances and a tightening siege had made it impossible to work there.
On Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said the United States 'condemns in the strongest possible terms' the R.S.F.-led violence in El Fasher. But she declined to say whether the Trump administration would affirm the Biden administration's determination that the R.S.F. had committed genocide.
The latest violence coincided with the second anniversary of the conflict, which started in April 2023 when fighting erupted between the Sudanese military and the R.S.F., a paramilitary group it once fostered.
The war took a sharp turn in recent weeks when the army drove R.S.F. fighters out of the capital, Khartoum. Many fled to Darfur, where the R.S.F. has regrouped and is now redoubling its yearlong effort to capture El Fasher.
Surging violence and poor communications have made it hard to get an accurate picture of the situation, but the estimate from the United Nations that nearly half a million people had been displaced in a matter of days was striking, even by the standards of the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
The devastation has renewed focus on the role of the United Arab Emirates in the conflict. American and U.N. officials have accused it of supplying weapons, drones and other military assistance to the R.S.F. The Emirates has consistently denied providing any help to the R.S.F.
Sudan's military-dominated government has brought a case against the Emirates, which opened last week at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing it of complicity in genocide. The Emirates asked for the case to be thrown out.
In Washington, members of Congress renewed calls for the United States to stop supplying weapons to the Emirates until it stops supporting the R.S.F.
'The U.A.E. should stop its materiel support to the R.S.F. now,' Rep. Sara Jacobs of California wrote Tuesday on social media.
American officials have said that senior Emirati leaders were more candid about their role in Sudan, including tacit admissions of support to the R.S.F., during private talks with Biden administration officials last year.
On Tuesday, hundreds of Sudanese massed outside the Emirati embassy in London to protest the alleged Emirati role in the war, in a demonstration that coincided with a major conference on Sudan hosted by the British government.
The European Union and Britain pledged $830 million in additional aid at the London conference, although Sudanese officials criticized the presence of Emirati officials who continued to press their denials about supporting the R.S.F.
In a statement, Lana Nusseibeh, assistant minister for political affairs at the Emirati foreign ministry, accused both sides in the war of atrocities, and said the U.A.E. was issuing 'an urgent call for peace.'