Blood-stained sands of Sudan visible from space: mass killings exposed

Satellite imagery has exposed the devastating scale of violence in El Fasher, Sudan, where paramilitary fighters are accused of massacring thousands of civilians, many of them women, children, and the elderly.

The conflict has left the city’s sandy terrain visibly stained with blood, a scene so stark it can be detected from space.

Citing The Telegraph report, according to the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), analysis of open-source and satellite imagery shows clusters of objects consistent with human bodies and reddish discoloration across the city, likely caused by blood or disturbed soil.

Evidence of “door-to-door clearance operations” has also been documented. HRL concluded that El Fasher is undergoing a “systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing” targeting indigenous non-Arab communities through forced displacement and summary executions.

Eyewitnesses and aid workers reported that more than 250,000 people had faced starvation and bombardment in the city, which had remained the last army-controlled stronghold in Darfur. Tens of thousands have since fled, with many heading westward toward Tawila, while others have been forcibly directed east into areas lacking humanitarian aid.

Video footage circulating online purportedly shows RSF fighters chasing unarmed civilians and shouting racial insults, with one recording capturing a fighter calling for the killing of the Nuba, Sudan’s black African tribes.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), largely drawn from militias and the infamous Janjaweed who were responsible for atrocities in Darfur two decades ago, have been implicated in multiple massacres across Sudan, including the 2023 fall of El Geneina. Former US National Security Council director Cameron Hudson warned: “We have seen what is unfolding in El Fasher before… it’s happening again, and still we do nothing.”

The United Nations and aid organizations have described the ongoing civil war as producing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Fighting between Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s de facto president, and his deputy Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), erupted into open conflict in April 2023. The war has displaced more than 14 million people and reportedly killed as many as 150,000. Health services have collapsed, and famine has spread across several regions.

UN officials have condemned the atrocities, with Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, warning of a “mounting risk of further large-scale, ethnically motivated violations and atrocities” in El Fasher. The UN Human Rights Office has received “multiple, alarming reports” of summary executions, torture, and sexual violence carried out by RSF fighters.

The international community has been called upon to respond as both sides reportedly receive external support. Efforts for a ceasefire continue, led by the so-called Quad of nations, including the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE.

As satellite images make the scale of the massacre in El Fasher painfully clear, human rights experts and aid organizations are urging urgent intervention to prevent further bloodshed and address what appears to be a coordinated campaign of ethnic cleansing.