El Fasher After the Fall

What the World Refused to Learn ... And What Comes Next.

[Polistratics]

Introduction: The Atrocity Everyone Has Learned to Ignore

On 7 November, the President of the Council on International Mediation (CIM) published a major Polistratics analysis titled “Sudan’s Tomorrow Is Being Written in El Fasher” warning that the city’s fall would normalize atrocity as political leverage.

Everything that piece warned about has now materialized — and, in several cases, surpassed even the darkest expectations.

El Fasher is no longer a distant headline. It is a crime scene, a famine zone, a mass-displacement corridor, and the clearest confirmation yet that Sudan’s war is entering its most dangerous and transformative chapter.

Yesterday, after visiting the region, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher described the situation with a clarity the international system has so far avoided:

“There is too much indifference and apathy to the massive suffering we’ve witnessed in Darfur.”

He recounted testimony of mass executions, sexual violence on a huge scale, torture, and the targeting of civilians trying to flee — all under what he called “a sense of complete impunity.”

This is not a war drifting into stalemate.It is a war accelerating into collapse.

I — After El Fasher, Sudan Is Effectively Split in Two

The 26 October RSF seizure of El Fasher — the last major government-held city in Darfur — marked the moment Sudan’s map became more than theoretical.

After an 18-month siege designed to starve and suffocate the city, the RSF now controls:

• All five Darfur state capitals

• Strategic corridors linking Sudan to Chad and Libya

• Gold-mining routes, revenue networks, and border crossings

• Urban centers emptied by bombardment and forced displacement

Meanwhile, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) hold:

• Khartoum

• Port Sudan (seat of the internationally recognized government)

• The northern Nile axis

• The eastern Red Sea corridor

• Large parts of North and West Kordofan

The truth is now unavoidable:

Sudan is divided — politically, militarily, and geographically.

El Fasher was the hinge. Its fall has locked the map into a new configuration.

II — Atrocities That No One Can Deny

Tom Fletcher’s testimony confirms what satellite imagery, survivor accounts, and humanitarian monitoring teams have been documenting for weeks.

The RSF’s takeover produced:

• Mass executions across multiple districts

• Sexual violence “on a huge scale”

• Torture and beatings

• Killings of civilians on escape routes

• Mass graves, including graves allegedly dug to hide evidence

• Hospitals stripped and emptied

• Children dying of starvation under siege conditions

Nearly 100,000 civilians have fled El Fasher since its fall.

Tens of thousands remain trapped, with the area now classified as IPC Phase 5 — famine, the highest possible designation.

“History will remember El Fasher not as a battle, but as a method.”

And as Fletcher warned, the world has met this with indifference and apathy.

III — A Humanitarian Collapse With No Safe Exits

Sudan’s war has now produced:

• Nearly 12 million displaced people

• One of the world’s largest hunger emergencies

• A famine corridor stretching from El Fasher into Chad’s borderlands

Families arriving in Chad describe children too weak to stand, medical facilities destroyed or looted, and escape routes riddled with checkpoints, gunfire, and drone strikes.

Attacks on aid convoys continue:

• A UN vehicle convoy was damaged near Zalingei after an airstrike.

• A drone strike on a funeral in El-Obeid killed at least 40 civilians.

The UN pledges to operate in all areas, under neutrality and impartiality. But the logistics tell a harsher truth:

A principle cannot move a convoy. Safe passage must be enforced, not requested.

IV — The RSF’s Strategy: Expansion, Not Negotiation

The RSF is not pausing to consolidate its Darfur gains.It is advancing — deliberately, aggressively, and in multiple directions.

Recent verified movements include:

• A push toward Babanusa in West Kordofan

• Reinforcements near El-Obeid

• New positions along the Central Darfur corridor

• Pressure on remaining SAF supply lines

These movements are not acts of defense.They are the opening maneuvers of a trans-Darfur to Kordofan expansion strategy.

El Fasher was not the victory. It was the launching pad.

V — The Army’s Position: Holding Ground, Not Winning the War

SAF forces maintain control over:

• Khartoum

• Port Sudan

• The Red Sea and eastern corridor

• Strategic northern towns

• Parts of central Sudan

But they are stretched thin and politically isolated.

Last week, in El-Sireha, Burhan ruled out peace talks entirely, signaling that the army is preparing for a fight it cannot afford to lose — even as the RSF extends its reach.

Fletcher described his meeting with Burhan as “constructive,” but the core reality remains:

The army cannot retake Darfur without external alignment.The RSF cannot be stopped without external pressure.

And neither condition yet exists.

VI — The Three Futures Sudan Now Faces

Based on all verified developments, Sudan is heading toward one of three outcomes. None are stable. One is catastrophic.

1 — A De Facto RSF State in Darfur

(Most likely)

Without decisive external intervention, Darfur will function as a quasi-state under RSF rule:

• Administered through fear

• Enabled by gold revenue and cross-border trade

• Stabilized through exhaustion, not peace

• Normalized by foreign actors seeking “engagement” rather than responsibility

This will not be recognized internationally.But it will govern millions of people.

“Authority imposed through atrocity is still authority — until someone stops it.”

2 — A Long, Fragmented, Two-Front War

(Highly likely)

Under this scenario:

• RSF holds the west and southwest

• SAF holds the east, north, and center

• Kordofan becomes the decisive theater

• Famine spreads into new districts

• The state disintegrates into rival zones

This would mirror the worst years of Libya and Yemen — but with deeper ethnic fractures and higher civilian vulnerability.

3 — A Monitored Ceasefire Imposed from Outside

(Possible, but distant)

This outcome requires:

• Unified Arab diplomacy

• U.S. alignment with regional states

• A robust monitoring mechanism

• Enforced humanitarian corridors

• Restrictions on weapons flows

• Consequences for attacks on civilians

This is the only scenario that halts famine and displacement.But for now, it exists on paper, not in policy.

“Diplomacy without enforcement buys time for the stronger side — not safety for the civilian.”

VII — The Real Crisis: Moral Erosion

The most revealing part of Fletcher’s interview was not the evidence of atrocities.It was the evidence of global indifference.

“Apathy… indifference… complete impunity.”

These are not conditions created by the RSF or the SAF.They are created by the international system.

Atrocities endure because there is no cost.Famine expands because there is no access.Displacement multiplies because there is no protection.Sudan fractures because the world allows it to.

Indifference is not passive.It is enabling.

Conclusion: El Fasher Is the Warning — Not the Aftermath

El Fasher has become the defining symbol of Sudan’s war:a city besieged, starved, emptied, violated, and abandoned.

It is also a mirror.

It shows the RSF’s intent, the army’s limits, the UN’s constraints, and the world’s indifference. It shows how atrocity can become territory, and how territory can become leverage.

But above all, it shows the question Sudan now forces upon the world:

Will atrocity become a legitimate path to political power in our time — or will El Fasher be the line that finally cannot be crossed?

For now, the answer is unfinished.

Sudan’s tomorrow is still being written.But unless something changes, it will not be written by diplomats.It will be written by those with the guns —and by those without the courage to stop them.

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