Why does Sudan now have two sobering and bleak anniversaries, commemorating rather than celebrating, and dedicated to a spiraling war where the Sudanese people remain abandoned and ignored?
This week marks yet another dark moment in this bloodshed. One year ago, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and after 500 days of besieging the city, they began to massacre tens of thousands of Zaghawa, Fur, Berti, and other non-Arab ethnic minorities.
RSF militants raided their homes, going door to door to kill and rape. They killed civilians in and near shelters for displaced families. In many cases, they gathered people and executed them together.
Videos showed the militants mutilating the Sudanese, burning them alive, shattering their skulls, and crushing them with trucks. They separated men and boys, intending to mass execute them. Hospitals and medical facilities were targeted, including maternity wards. The speed and intensity of the killings were astonishing. So many Sudanese were killed so quickly, the massacre was compared to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide. It was so brutal, so violent, that the blood of all the Sudanese people killed was quite literally visible from space.
Amnesty concluded that these were crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan found that these acts met the core criteria of genocide, documenting systematic starvation, torture, rape, and the delibate targeting of ethnic minorities.
All of this was made possible because there has not been a single attempt to hold even one person accountable. The war rages on four years later, El Fasher marks one of several potential genocides, and yet, no one has been brought to justice.
The lack of accountability also means the RSF has gleefully moved on to El Obeid, a city already suffering from drought, extreme heat, and attacks. The UN and human rights organizations have raised high alarms and issued warnings regarding the profound risk of mass atrocities and a deepening humanitarian catastrophe as the RSF surrounds the city.
In 2025, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a genocide determination in regards to Sudan and sanctioned RSF leader, Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa (Hemedti). And despite the determination, the US hasn’t taken a single step towards justice, accountability, or a ceasefire. In fact, the Trump administration and State Department hosted Hemedti’s brother, putting him up in the five-star Waldorf Astoria during a meeting with the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), collectively known as the Quad.
Not a single bill has been passed, despite the introduction of several, not a single Sudanese civilian has been included in the conversations the Quad continues to waste time on, and not a single murderer brought to justice. The greatest external driver of the conflict, the UAE remains unencumbered by legal challenges, suspension of military or financial aid, or attempts to hold them accountable for their direct role in the deaths of so many Sudanese. It continues to fund the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, smuggling advanced guided aerial bombs and howitzers to the RSF, training Colombian mercenaries deployed to fight alongside RSF, and stealing their gold.
Just last week, the UAE formally placed their bid to have Lana Nusseibeh become the next UN Secretary General, a position that is supposed to be filled by a South American or Caribbean representative. Cameron Hudson, the former White House National Security Council Director for Africa, slammed her bid, noting Nusseibeh “has been the UAE’s chief diplomat denying the [UAE support for RSF] and defending the regime.” The co-founder of Khartoum Aid Kitchen was more blunt, saying she “used her position as UAE Ambassador…to cover up and gaslight [the UAE]” and calling her “a direct insult to the Sudanese.” Yet she was supported instead by Brett McGurk, Biden’s Middle East coordinator, who called her “an inspired choice”; McGurk, notably, is widely considered a chief enabler and architect of the Palestinian genocide.
Nusseibeh’s and the UAE’s bid is so outrageously shameless not only because of their complicity in the Sudan genocide, but also because the diplomat was the country’s point person on Sudan and assured other governments that the UAE was not backing the RSF. Nusseibeh is emblematic of nothing the UN stands for; nevertheless, despite the whitewashing of human rights violations and crimes against humanity, the UAE gets to continue acting as part of the international community and worse, a mediator in a genocide it has deliberately prolonged for its own geopolitical greed.
Where are the calls to condition or suspend arms sales, to instate an immediate and permanent ceasefire, to protect civilians from relentless drone strikes and killings and sexual violence? Where is the outrage from everyday people or from the media, which continue to pretend Sudan is a forgotten war, rather than a deliberately ignored and abandoned one? Congress, the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the State Department, and the Administration all have yet to acknowledge the anniversary of the El Fasher genocide, whilst other foreign governments have, at the very least, put out statements and calls for action.
At what point, have the international community, the public, the ummah had enough?
It’s difficult to reflect on the four years of scant advocacy and remain optimistic about meaningful action. And yet, it’s exactly in these moments, that we remember: “‘Which kind of Jihad is best?’ The Prophet (SAW) said: ‘A word of truth spoken before an unjust ruler.’” (Sunan an-Nasa’i 4209; Book 39, Hadith 61)
Allah reminds us that “the Believers are like one person; if the eye is sore, the whole body aches, and if the head aches, the whole body aches.” We should be outraged and angry and upset. We should be demanding more and more not only from our governments, but from each other, to engage in more meaningful action, to not accept the bare minimum, and to protect our brothers and sisters across this world. It’s not enough for celebrities to sprinkle a quick “Free Sudan” in their laundry list of repressed countries. We cannot allow our governments to shrug off their responsibilities and to believe that this cruelty is normal in African countries.
And above all, we should not let Sudan’s fate be decided by anyone but the Sudanese themselves. Sudan’s future won’t be decided in the opaque halls of D.C. or Geneva or by the Quad members, all of whom have played a role in Sudan’s destruction and devastation.
It will be the Sudanese, who have spent decades being ignored, disregarded, and left to fend for themselves. And it will remain our moral and Islamic responsibility to empower, amplify, and do whatever it takes to bring an end to this bloodshed.
Resources
- • Learn more about the award-winning Emergency Response Rooms (ERR), a grassroots community- and youth-led mutual aid network in Sudan, serving millions of displaced and war-affected Sudanese
- • The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a briefing on the role of transnational networks fueling the war in Sudan. Hear from a panel of experts, including Dan Sullivan, Refugee International’s Director for Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, who reflected on his recent trip to Sudan. You can watch it here.
- • Amnesty published a report on the stories of survivors. Read more here.
- • Statement from the UK Government announcing sanctions on senior military commanders suspected of atrocities and support for survivors.
- • Statement by members of the Coalition on Atrocity Prevention and Justice for Sudan on the October 26, 2025 Atrocity in El Fasher
Articles
Events
- • Sudan Action Hub is hosting a Hill Day next week on Friday, October 30 in Washington, D.C. Join us, as we advocate for Sudan and demand Congress do more.
- • Sudan Action Hub is also hosting a demonstration in front of the UAE embassy on Thursday, October 29.