‘Hiroshima-level casualties’ feared in final battle for North Darfur

The capital of North Darfur could be about to fall to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces as they fight the Sudanese Armed Forces in the country's year-long civil war.

“It never gets easier to watch people die from space,” says a weary Nathaniel Raymond.

The veteran human rights investigator is monitoring the enciriclement of the Sudanese city of El Fasher in almost-real-time, via high-resolution satellite images.

The capital of the state of North Darfur could be about to fall to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allies, as they fight against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the country’s year-long civil war.

On Friday, Raymond told Global News he believes some RSF troops have made it inside the city limits.

El Fasher is the last city still under SAF control in the vast eastern region of Darfur. It hosts hundreds of thousands of people who have fled violence elsewhere.

“The information is clear. We know what’s going to happen. (The RSF) has motive. They have intent. They’ve literally killed before, over and over again. And they’ve stated what they want to do here,” says Raymond, who is executive director at the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health.

“The worst case is Hiroshima- and Nagasaki-level casualties.”

The RSF has been accused of mass-killings and mass-rapes throughout the war. Most notably in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina, where 10,000-15,000 people were killed in ethnically targeted killings last year, according to a panel of United Nations experts.