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Darfur
Sudan's vast western region, almost entirely under RSF control since the fall of El Fasher
Darfur, the westernmost region of Sudan, has twice in two decades become a byword for mass atrocity. Since war broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023, it has again been the conflict's bloodiest theater. On 26 and 27 October 2025 the RSF captured El Fasher, the last army-held state capital in Darfur, after an 18-month siege, and the UN and rights groups documented mass killings of civilians, particularly from non-Arab communities, as the city fell. The RSF denies targeting civilians and presents itself as fighting an army it calls captive to Islamists. As of October 2026 Darfur is the territorial base of an RSF-led rival government.
Darfur's five states cover about 493,000 square kilometers, roughly the size of Spain, running from Saharan desert in the north through Sahel savanna to wooded country near the Central African Republic and South Sudan. The volcanic Jebel Marra massif, rising above 3,000 meters, stands at its center. Nyala, El Fasher, El Geneina, Zalingei and Ed Daein are the state capitals, and since El Fasher's fall the RSF holds all five. Its Tasis alliance has set up a parallel government based in Nyala. The Sudan Liberation Army faction of Abdel Wahid al-Nur holds Jebel Marra and the Tawila area, outside both sides' authority, while army-aligned Joint Forces kept a foothold near the Chad border around Tina in early 2026. Aid enters mainly from Chad through the Adre crossing.
The Fur sultanate ruled Darfur until Britain annexed it to Sudan in 1916. In 2003 rebels from Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa communities rose against Khartoum, and the government armed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. The UN estimated about 300,000 deaths in that conflict, and the International Criminal Court charged President Omar al-Bashir with genocide. Many Janjaweed units became the RSF in 2013. In January 2025 the United States determined that the RSF had committed genocide in the current war. IOM says Darfur hosts about 65 percent of Sudan's 8.6 million internally displaced, and more than 700,000 people shelter around Tawila. In October 2026 the IPC warned of spreading famine conditions in Darfur and Kordofan, and US-led Quad efforts with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt had produced no ceasefire.