In the spring of 2026, a 38-year-old man returned to Fashir to collect his belongings from his home. Amnesty International calls him Hatim to keep his identity secret. When he was detained by members of the Rapid Support Forces (HDK) and taken to a school, the severe shrapnel wound on Hatim's jaw was still not healed. According to her, she was held there for four months along with approximately 300 people, mostly women. When he tried to escape, they beat him brutally, ignoring his open wounds.
This week has been exactly one year since Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, came under HDK control on October 26, 2025, after an 18-month siege. The city was the last major stronghold of the Sudanese army in Darfur. The massacres that started with the fall of the city were widely covered in the international press. However, what Hatim experienced is only a small summary of the violence and rights violations that continued away from the eyes of the world for the past year.
Evidence of the brutality in Fashir soon came to light. According to the data of the United Nations Human Rights Office, at least 6 thousand people were killed in the first three days of the city's fall. Satellite images examined by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Laboratory revealed red stains spreading on the ground within the first 24 hours and shadows resembling lifeless human bodies. Immediately afterwards, the UN Security Council Sudan Sanctions Committee included in its reports the images taken by an HDK commander nicknamed Abu Lulu, killing people begging for their lives.
In its findings announced in February 2026, the UN International Independent Investigation Mission for Sudan concluded that HDK's actions in Al-Fashir bore clear signs of genocide against the Zagava and Fur peoples. According to the mission, these actions contained at least three of the basic acts that constitute the legal crime of genocide.
Amnesty International's report dated 23 October 2026 reveals the destruction left behind. Today, less than 70 thousand people live in the city, which had a population of over one million before the war. Those who were able to escape the city this summer describe arbitrary detention, torture and forced labor. A Fashirite who returned to the city in June summarized the situation to Amnesty International with the following words: "The Fashir I knew no longer exists." Although HDK claims that civilians can return to the city safely, the evidence collected by Amnesty suggests the opposite.
Psychologist Paul Slovic reveals that people go out of their way to save a single identified person, but become desensitized when that same person becomes one of thousands of victims. As the numbers get larger, there is often an emotional response below expectations. Susan Sontag makes a similar observation about photographs documenting pain: People turn their backs on these images when they believe that what is happening has nothing to do with them and that nothing can be done.
It may also be tempting to portray the war in Sudan as a tragedy caused by a single actor. However, the reality on the ground is much more complex. The UN Human Rights Office recorded that in the first three weeks of October 2026, drones attributed to both the Sudanese army and HDK killed at least 306 people.
The Independent Investigation Mission's September report found that foreign weapons, drones and personnel increased the military capacity of both sides, while also tracing how foreign support reached Fashir. The report found that individuals and organizations based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or affiliated with the UAE played an important role in supporting the HDK. Freight shipments and foreign mercenaries were transported through the port of Bosaso in the Puntland region of Somalia, where UAE-based structures maintain a military base, as well as Kufra and Benghazi in Libya and Chad. While HDK members trained in Libya later took part in the Zamzam camp and Fashir attacks, there were also Colombian mercenaries around the city before, during and after the fall of the city. The UAE rejects all these allegations.
This shipping line extending through Chad was not actually new. In a UN sanctions inspectors report leaked to the press in January 2024, the findings that the UAE provided military support to HDK through the Amdjarass city of Chad were found "credible". The UAE, on the other hand, claimed that humanitarian aid was transported to a field hospital in the region with the flights in question.
Even though its name is not mentioned as a supplier in the UN reports, Israel is also part of this picture. In May 2022, a joint investigation conducted by Lighthouse Reports and Haaretz revealed that a plane linked to a private surveillance company belonging to a former Israeli intelligence officer landed in Khartoum. Sources told investigators that there were surveillance technologies brought for HDK on the plane. Moreover, while HDK was massacring civilians in Fashir, Israel's official Arabic social media account joined the discourses along the lines of the UAE and identified the Sudanese army with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. In short, a war fueled by external support does not end with the sadness of those watching from afar.
Compassion and solidarity only yield results when they turn into concrete and practical demands addressed to actors who have the power to take action. The available findings point to three basic steps.
Firstly, the arms embargo currently covering Darfur should cease to remain on paper and be implemented in practice. The Independent Investigative Mission had documented that foreign mercenaries entered Sudan through Nyala Airport in South Darfur. Therefore, at least part of the shipping traffic described above may be interrupted within the framework of the current embargo. The current sanctions decisions expire on December 11. While its term of office is extended, the UN Panel of Experts should also be given the authority and opportunities to inspect these lines.
Secondly, the networks that provide weapons and military support must be made to pay a concrete price. In February, the UN Sanctions Committee placed four HDK commanders, including the brother of the HDK leader, on its sanctions list for the atrocities in Fashir. However, as long as the supply lines feeding these forces remain open, the impact of the penalties imposed on commanders in the field will remain limited. On the other hand, the Independent Investigation Mission listed Ethiopia, Libya, Somalia and South Sudan among the countries that left requests for information unanswered. These countries need to answer these questions.
Third, visible and concrete steps must be taken to hold those responsible accountable. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has the authority to prosecute crimes committed in Darfur in accordance with the UN Security Council's referral decision dated 2005. In January 2026, the ICC Deputy Prosecutor informed the Security Council that they had concluded that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed in Fashir. However, according to Middle East Eye, the prosecutor's office has not applied for a single arrest warrant regarding crimes in Darfur since April 2023. The Attorney General's Office states that such applications are kept confidential. However, for the survivors, it is not possible to see that justice is truly progressing behind closed doors.
There is also a practical step that those living far from Sudan can take. Asking their own governments where they stand on these three demands. The next exam is already clear. UN officials have been warning that the city of Ubeid, with a population of approximately half a million, may share the same fate as Fashir since June.
Hatim survived. If the one-year anniversary of Fashir's fall is to have any real meaning, his testimony must be treated as evidence that compels accountability.
