Sudanese RSF’s capture of Darfur city could cement country's split, observers say

PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative photo by United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) via Flickr

By Nafisa Eltahir

A Sudanese paramilitary force is battling the last pockets of resistance in a Darfur city that has endured a brutal 18-month siege and where a full takeover would entrench a geographical division of the country between rival military factions.  

The advance by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has also raised fears of reprisals against the estimated 250,000 people remaining in al-Fashir, the final holdout of the Sudanese army in the western Darfur region, and of an escalation of fighting elsewhere in Sudan. 

Since Sunday, when the RSF said it had captured the army's headquarters in al-Fashir, RSF fighters have been detaining fleeing civilians in nearby towns and villages, witnesses as well as humanitarian and military sources said. Some 26,000 people had been displaced by the fighting, the International Organization for Migration said.      

Two Sudanese military sources said on Monday that thousands of soldiers from the army and allied former rebel groups were surrounded by RSF fighters after retreating into neighbourhoods in western al-Fashir.

RISK OF PARTITION

Darfur, the RSF's stronghold, is home to a parallel government it created, and RSF sources say it is also the current base for top RSF leaders including General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti.

"The RSF's full control of the Darfur region could have dangerous and worrying consequences in the future in terms of partition," Massad Boulos, U.S. senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, told Al Jazeera Mubasher.

He compared that prospect to Libya, where competing governments linked to military factions based in the east and west created a de facto geographical split.         

The RSF, which has been locked in a civil war with the army for more than two-and-a-half years, could also use the momentum to try to regain ground elsewhere in Sudan, analysts said. 

Unless the latest push for U.S.-brokered peace talks makes progress where past attempts have stalled, that could worsen a conflict which has already caused famine, triggered waves of ethnically driven violence and displaced millions of people.

The army was able to oust the RSF from the Sudanese capital Khartoum earlier this year, but the paramilitaries have amassed advanced weaponry including long-range drones that could allow them to attempt a comeback, one military and one RSF source said.

POSSIBILITY OF FURTHER ADVANCES

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said foreign provision of weapons and increasing external interference in the war were undermining the chances of a political solution. The army accuses the United Arab Emirates of providing military support to the RSF, which the UAE denies.

"We haven't seen a sign that RSF leadership is content with just western Sudan," said Alan Boswell of Crisis Group. "So as long as they are receiving enough supplies to continue a war effort, they still look like they are continuing to escalate this war."

The RSF made gains over the weekend in the strategic city of Bara, North Kordofan, which puts it within hours of Khartoum. 

"Our liberation of al-Fashir is the liberation of Sudan, all the way to Port Sudan.... We are coming and we are coming heavy," said RSF second-in-command Abdelrahim Dagalo speaking in a video dated Sunday released by the force from the army's al-Fashir base.

"The new Sudan goes forward, the old Sudan gets destroyed," one soldier can be heard chanting, a key slogan for the RSF-led authority.

In a statement on Monday the RSF said it would protect civilians in al-Fashir and that humanitarian preparations were being made.

CIVILIANS ROUNDED UP

Two military sources and two humanitarian sources said the RSF appeared to be directing fleeing civilians to towns around al-Fashir where it aimed to set up displacement camps. 

Eyewitnesses who arrived in Tawila - a town to the east controlled by a neutral force that has absorbed hundreds of thousands of fleeing civilians - told Reuters they had been directed to the nearby town of Garney on foot, and that hundreds of people including women and children remained in RSF custody there. 

Activists have long warned of revenge attacks on civilians from the Zaghawa tribe after the intense fight for the city, as happened in the Zamzam displacement camp to the south.

RSF officials released videos on Sunday saying they were providing safe passage for former fighters, though other videos posted by activists but not verified by Reuters appeared to show RSF fighters shooting unarmed men and cheering around dead bodies. 

 (Additional reporting by Mohamed Jamal; Editing by Aidan Lewis // REUTERS)