Al-Debba, Sudan – November 14, 2025 – In a stark illustration of Sudan's spiraling humanitarian catastrophe, approximately 57,000 people fleeing relentless assaults by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have converged on the northern city of Al-Debba in recent weeks, according to the government's Humanitarian Aid Commission. The arrivals, primarily from war-torn Darfur and Kordofan regions, mark one of the largest sudden displacements since the paramilitary group's seizure of North Darfur's capital, El-Fasher, last month. Local officials warn that the influx is straining already fragile resources, with makeshift camps emerging amid reports of severe injuries, malnutrition, and psychological trauma among the refugees.
Kawther Jaafar, the government-appointed humanitarian aid commissioner in Al-Debba, described the situation on Friday as "a tide of desperation" pouring into the city. Speaking to Anadolu Agency, she detailed how the displaced endured "harsh" conditions during treacherous journeys on foot, by overloaded vehicles, or even on donkey carts, evading RSF checkpoints notorious for extortion, beatings, and summary executions. "These families fled the brutality and violations of the rebel militia," Jaafar said, referring to the RSF, a force accused by the United Nations and human rights groups of committing war crimes, including ethnically targeted killings and widespread sexual violence. Among the newcomers are hundreds with gunshot wounds, fractures from falls during escapes, and shrapnel injuries from indiscriminate shelling. Children, who comprise over half of the arrivals, are particularly vulnerable, with Jaafar noting acute malnutrition cases spiking due to weeks without adequate food en route.
Of the total, around 50,000 hail from El-Fasher, including 32,000 who trickled in after the city's fall on October 26, 2025, following an 18-month RSF siege that triggered famine conditions. The remaining 7,000 originated from North Kordofan hotspots like Bara, where RSF forces recaptured the town in late October, displacing up to 50,000 more in a matter of days. El Obeid, North Kordofan's capital, has absorbed over 175,000 from the three Kordofan states in the past month alone, while eastern cities like Kassala report 3,000 new arrivals. Aid workers from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) describe Al-Debba as a "new frontier of suffering," with temporary shelters in the El-Afadh camp – established just days ago – now housing thousands under tarpaulin sheets battered by desert winds.
This exodus is the latest ripple from Sudan's civil war, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, once-allied paramilitaries that splintered over power-sharing disputes in the post-Omar al-Bashir transitional government. What began as a Khartoum street battle has morphed into a proxy-fueled quagmire, killing tens of thousands – with estimates from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) pegging direct combat fatalities at over 17,000 by mid-2025, though indirect deaths from starvation and disease push the toll toward 150,000. The conflict has displaced nearly 12 million people, the world's largest such crisis, including 8.8 million internally and 3.5 million refugees in neighboring Chad, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. In Khartoum State alone, 61,000 have perished, half from violence.
The RSF's pivot to Kordofan after consolidating Darfur control has accelerated the chaos. Last month, after overrunning El-Fasher – the last SAF bastion in Darfur's five states – the group seized Bara, a vital Darfur-central Sudan link, just two months after the army had retaken it. Eyewitnesses in Omdurman recounted to Reuters how RSF gunmen shot civilians indiscriminately, with one survivor, Khalil from Bara, displaying a bandaged hand from a close-range wound. The IOM's Amy Pope reported up to 50,000 displaced from Kordofan since the RSF advance, many trekking eastward to avoid drone strikes now targeting oil fields in the south. In El-Fasher, the takeover unleashed horrors echoing the 2003 Darfur genocide, where RSF precursors – the Janjaweed militias – killed over 200,000 non-Arab civilians.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) verified dozens of social media videos showing RSF fighters executing unarmed men along escape routes, often shouting ethnic slurs at Zaghawa and other African groups. "We won’t give guarantees to prisoners," one fighter is heard yelling in footage geolocated near El-Fasher's perimeter berm. The UN Human Rights Office documented summary executions, rapes, and detentions for ransom – demands ranging from $8,000 to $50,000 – with at least 1,500 killed in the initial assault, per the Sudan Doctors Network. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported every child under five among 70 new Tawila camp arrivals on October 27 as acutely malnourished, 57% severely so. Satellite imagery from Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab revealed blood pools and mass graves, while the RSF buried hundreds in unmarked pits or burned bodies to conceal evidence.
The El-Fasher siege, lasting 500 days, weaponized hunger: the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed famine in the city and Kadugli (South Kordofan), affecting 375,000, with 6.3 million nationwide at "catastrophic" hunger levels. Cholera outbreaks, dengue, and unburied corpses exacerbate disease risks in camps like Tawila, now sheltering 500,000. UN High Commissioner Volker Türk warned of "unimaginable atrocities," with 82,000 fleeing El-Fasher's 260,000 pre-siege population, many trapped or missing. Amnesty International decried the RSF's Kordofan push as "grave dangers," citing arms embargo breaches fueling the violence.
Geopolitics compounds the misery. The RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), controls Darfur's gold mines and borders with Chad and Libya, allegedly bankrolled by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) via Libyan airlifts – 68 flights in October alone, per local monitors. The SAF, backed by Egypt and possibly Russia, holds Khartoum and eastern states but struggles with supply lines. A brief March 2025 SAF recapture of Khartoum allowed returns, but western gains elude them. Foreign meddling – UAE drones, Ethiopian border skirmishes – risks partition, with RSF eyeing El-Obeid next.
In Al-Debba, Jaafar's team, aided by MSF and the Norwegian Refugee Council, distributes meager rations: one meal per day for families of eight. "Wounds heal, but the fear lingers," said Fatima, a 35-year-old mother from El-Fasher, cradling her malnourished toddler. She recounted RSF fighters separating men for execution, her husband vanishing at a checkpoint. Over 12,000 have fled to White Nile State since late October, per UN data, but aid reaches only 10% in Tawila due to access blocks.
Global calls mount: The U.S. State Department condemned RSF "retribution," urging no repeat of El-Geneina's 2023 Masalit massacre (15,000 dead). Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar demanded ceasefires, while the African Union pushes accountability. Yet, as RSF drones strike South Kordofan schools and SAF retaliates, mediation falters.
IOM's Pope lamented: Aid is "nowhere close" to needs, with 140,000 newly displaced since El-Fasher. In Al-Debba, Jaafar pleads for corridors: "Without intervention, this river of refugees will drown us all." As winter chills the desert, the world watches Sudan's fracture deepen, a war of attrition claiming lives not just by bullet, but by neglect.
