Sudan’s Tomorrow Is Being Written in El Fasher

The fall of El Fasher is not just another battle — it is the normalization of atrocity as diplomacy.

[Polistratics]

A War the World Pretends Not to See

By any reasonable moral standard, the story out of Sudan this week should dominate the world’s front pages. A militia born from the machinery of an earlier genocide has tightened its grip on Darfur’s last major army-held city after an eighteen-month siege conducted with starvation and terror.

The Rapid Support Forces did not simply win a battle; they have acquired a captive population, a shattered region and, unless the world wakes up, something far more dangerous: the presumption that they are here to stay.

“When the world grows tired, the warlord grows bold.”

Today’s headlines describe massacres, mass graves, and burned bodies. Tomorrow’s headline, if nothing changes, will be quieter and far more sinister: “International community urges both sides to de-escalate.”

That bland little phrase will be the burial shroud of Sudanese civilians.

A Militia That Behaves Like an Army of Occupation

The Rapid Support Forces are not some youthful revolutionary movement that took a wrong turn last month. They are the direct descendants of the Janjaweed — the militias that turned Darfur into a graveyard twenty years ago.

Having traded horses for pick-up trucks and rifles for drones, they still operate on the same logic: terror as governance, ethnicity as policy, civilians as expendable.

Their capture of El Fasher came only after an eighteen-month siege that starved the city into submission. When it finally fell, witnesses described door-to-door killings, mass abductions, and hospitals stripped bare. Satellite evidence shows bodies dumped and burned.

This is not chaos — it is doctrine. The RSF fights this way because it can, governs this way because it wants to, and survives this way because the world allows it.

“Starvation was not an accident of war; it was a method.”

The Normalization of Atrocity

If there is one theme that defines Sudan’s tragedy, it is the creeping normalization of atrocity.

We have seen this before. A non-state force soaked in war crimes endures long enough to become “unavoidable.” Slowly, the language softens. Yesterday’s militia becomes tomorrow’s de facto authority. Yesterday’s massacre is repackaged as alleged abuses by both sides.

Endure long enough, and outrage fades. Geography begins to look like legitimacy.

“If a militia can outlast our outrage, it will inherit our indifference.”

This is the pattern that must be broken — not only for Sudan, but for every place where men with guns test the world’s tolerance for cruelty.

The Army, the State, and the Lesser Evil

None of this requires romanticizing Sudan’s army. Its history is littered with coups and repression. But the distinction between a national army and a paramilitary empire still matters.

The army, however flawed, is bound — however tenuously — to a flag, a constitution, and the possibility of accountability. The RSF is bound only to profit and power.

If you care about the chance of rebuilding a state, the difference is existential. Supporting the principle of a state monopoly on force is not blind loyalty; it is a defense of civilization itself.

“A militia answers to cash and cruelty — never to a constitution.”

Those who continue to arm, fund, or shield the RSF are not “stakeholders.” They are accomplices.

Tomorrow’s Headline, If Nothing Changes

Project the next few weeks. The same siege tactics that flattened El Fasher will spread across Darfur. Camps will overflow into the desert. Famine will harden into fact. Children who are “acutely malnourished” today will not be alive to be measured tomorrow.

Beyond Sudan’s borders, refugees will flood into already fragile states. Traffickers will thrive. And in distant capitals, policymakers will claim surprise — as if they hadn’t been warned.

Inside Sudan, exhaustion will pave the way for capitulation. The phrase “peace at any price” will begin to circulate. But peace at any price is not peace. It is surrender with paperwork.

“Peace at any price is not peace. It is surrender with paperwork.”

What a Different Tomorrow Would Look Like

A different tomorrow begins with moral clarity.

There can be no political normalization of a force credibly accused of genocide. Not while it holds cities hostage and civilians in graves.

El Fasher must be treated as a crime scene, not a negotiation table. Humanitarian corridors must be enforced, not requested. Every mass grave must be documented — not for today’s victims, but for tomorrow’s accountability.

It also means standing with those inside Sudan — civilian or military — who still believe in the survival of the state, however imperfect. A broken institution can be rebuilt; a militia built on atrocity cannot be reformed.

“Neutrality between a nation and a death squad is not diplomacy — it is cowardice in a suit.”

The Verdict We Are About to Write

Justice, in the end, is a verdict we collectively write about ourselves. The record in Sudan is already being written in ash and bone.

History will judge the RSF. That part is easy.

The question is how history will judge everyone else — those who watched, equivocated, and preferred engagement over condemnation.

“Sudan’s tomorrow is being written now — by men with guns and by governments with excuses.”

There is still time to change the script. But if the world once again rewards those who kill their way into power, we should drop the pretense of humanitarian order altogether.

We will not be bringing peace to Sudan.

We will be certifying that in our time, mass atrocity has become a viable path to legitimacy.

That would not only be Sudan’s tragedy.

It would be ours.

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Nawaf Al-Thani is the President of CIM, Editor of Polistratics. And a former Director of Intelligence Operations in Qatar's Defense Intelligence, as well as the former Defense Attaché to the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

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