Sudan war: Famine rages as peace talks fall short yet again

Like a swarm of human locusts, RSF militiamen rampaged through the capital, Khartoum, stripping it bare of anything that could be pillaged and resold. The force also vandalised vital infrastructure such as hospitals and schools.

The same story was repeated wherever the RSF advanced.

The breadbasket regions of Gezira and Sennar along the Blue Nile, a place of vast irrigated farms, have been ravaged.

People there are going hungry for the first time in generations.

Starvation is worst in Darfur, especially in el-Fasher, the only city in the region still controlled by the army and its local allies.

Surrounded by the RSF, the city depends on precarious supply routes that cross the battle lines. It is in the Zamzam camp for displaced people near el-Fasher that the aid group Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) first reported famine levels of malnutrition.

For its part, the army has fallen back on its tried-and-tested strategy of cutting off rebel-held areas. Its logic is that if it can choke off external supplies, the RSF’s local supporters will become discontented and some of its units may defect.

That tactic worked well when it was fighting the long war in southern Sudan from 1983 to 2005. Its generals regret that they allowed the UN to send aid, which, they believe, sustained the rebellion for long enough to enable the southerners to claim their independence.

The SAF controls Port Sudan, the country’s only port and its major route for imports. Even more importantly, the United Nations recognises the SAF as the sovereign government.