By G. Dunkel
November 19, 2025
At the end of October, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), overran the western Sudan city of el-Fasher. This city had been a refugee center controlled by RSF’s opponent, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The blood spilled on the ground by the massacres carried out was so thick it was visible in satellite photos.
If they were lucky, thousands of refugees fled on foot to the town of Tawila, most with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and their children in their arms according to an Instagram post from SuRF (the Sudanese Resistance Front), a support group in the diaspora. (Instagram)
Most of the refugees were women and girls, who were subjected to sexual assault and rape. The RSF killed the boys and men.
Tawila is 30 miles from el-Fasher and was already the site of a major refugee center. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), the United Nations and several other humanitarian groups are all operating there.
While precise figures are hard to come by, the U.N. estimates that between 12% and 15% of Sudan’s 51 million people are internally displaced; 375,000 are on the verge of starving, because they have not eaten enough food; and 12 million face grave food insecurity.
What led to this crisis?
Previously, the decades-long regime of Omar El-Bashir crumbled in 2019 under popular pressure coming from a coalition that included the Sudanese Communist Party, the National Consensus Forces, the Sudanese Professionals Association, the Sudan Revolutionary Front, the Women of Sudanese Civic and Political Groups and many local resistance and neighborhood committees.
The RSF and SAF “persuaded” El-Bashir to step down and set up the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC), consisting of six civilians and five military, with the head of the SAF as its chair and the head of the RSF his deputy.
The TSCs’ economic policies made gold smuggling more profitable, strengthening the RSF, which controlled gold mining in Sudan.
The RSF and the SAF, although part of the leadership of the TSC, kept attempting coups until they succeeded in 2021, when they pushed aside civilian leadership. The two groups then turned on each other to settle their profound differences over control of Sudan’s resources. The vicious and dangerous conflict between the RSF and the SAF began April 15, 2023.
The popular agitation and rejection of military control, so evident in the struggle against El-Bashir, means that neither armed group has support from a civilian-based political party. Without political support, they have relied on terror.
Imperialists’ role
The imperialist and regional powers — including the U.S., Britain, the European Union, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the African Union — have played a decisive role in shaping the tragedy unfolding in Sudan. In particular, Israel has helped the UAE to set up military bases throughout the region, and the U.S. has a contingent of 4,000 troops based in the UAE.
As a major gold trading hub, the UAE has also been the recipient of much of the gold smuggled out of Sudan. Yet, all these countries share a common objective: to prevent the success of the Sudanese revolution of 2019.
Besides making the situation in Sudan known to the widest audience, progressives should push for a ceasefire and expose the poisonous role played by the U.S. and its allies.
