By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Rapid Support Forces Capture the Sudanese army's last stronghold in Darfur

Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said on Sunday, October 26, 2025, they had captured the army headquarters in the city of al-Fashir, the Sudanese army's last stronghold in the Darfur region in the west of the country.

Two videos shared by the RSF showed its soldiers cheering in front of signs for the army's Sixth Infantry base. Reuters was able to verify the location but not the date. The army did not immediately state its current position.

A subject we covered in 2002 and 2003 continues to flare up again. More recently, after destructive fighting, Sudan’s civil war has reached an uneasy stalemate. Since the beginning of 2025, the Sudanese Armed Forces and allied militias have made significant gains against the Rapid Support Forces, the powerful militia accused of genocide, as the two factions vie for control of the country.

 

Sudan During the Time of Ancient Egypt

 

What Is With Sudan Today?

Sudan plunged into a civil war in April 2023 after a vicious power struggle broke out between its army and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It has led to a famine and claims of a genocide in the western Darfur region.

Sudan is in north-east Africa and is one of the largest countries on the continent, covering 1.9 million sq km (734,000 sq miles). It borders seven countries and the Red Sea. The River Nile also flows through it, making it strategically important for foreign powers. The population of Sudan is predominantly Muslim, and the country's official languages are Arabic and English. Even before the war started, Sudan was one of the poorest countries in the world, although it is a gold-producing nation.

Its 46 million people living on an average annual income of $750 (£600) a head in 2022. The conflict has made things much worse. Last year, Sudan's finance minister said state revenues had shrunk by 80%. More than 150,000 people have died in the conflict across the country, and about 12 million have fled their homes in what the United Nations has called the world's largest humanitarian crisis.

Sudan is one of Africa's biggest gold producers

In spite of its potential wealth, Sudan’s current disaster could become a bitter but valuable lesson on overreach for regional powers, prompting them to learn how to manage their competition, ideally without relying so heavily on the United States as a middleman. But the prospect of playing a smaller role must not be an excuse for the United States to walk away. Some in Washington argue that because influencing peacemaking in the Horn is harder than it used to be, the U.S. government should pull back. But that will only encourage even more instability. Washington will need to learn to adapt and contribute to mediation processes in which it is one of various players, not the decider. Otherwise, catastrophic wars like Sudan’s could multiply.

Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) says it has taken control of the western city of el-Fasher, marking a turning point in the civil war. The group said in a statement on social media that it had seized el-Fasher "from the grip of mercenaries and militias allied with the terrorist army".

The loss would be a huge blow to the Sudanese army as el-Fasher is its last remaining foothold in the Darfur region, leaving the RSF effectively in control of the area. The army has yet to comment. It comes after the rebel group announced the capture of the army's 6th Division Headquarters, saying that it had destroyed "huge military vehicles" and taken military equipment.

Local pro-army fighters, the Popular Resistance, accused the RSF of running a "media disinformation campaign" to undermine the "high morale of the forces". The RSF has surrounded el-Fasher for the last 18 months, with army positions and civilians under frequent bombardment. An estimated 300,000 people have been trapped by the fighting.

 

Meet The Janjaweed

Since then, Gen Dagalo has built a powerful force that has intervened in conflicts in Yemen and Libya. He also controlled some of Sudan's gold mines and allegedly smuggled the metal to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The army accuses the UAE of backing the RSF and carrying out drone strikes in Sudan. The oil-rich Gulf state denies the allegation.

The army also accuses eastern Libyan strongman Gen Khalifa Haftar of supporting the RSF by helping it to smuggle weapons into Sudan and sending fighters to bolster the RSF.

In early June 2025, the RSF achieved a major victory when it took control of territory along Sudan's border with Libya and Egypt. The RSF also controls almost all of Darfur and much of neighbouring Kordofan. It has declared plans to form a rival government, raising fears that Sudan could split for a second time. South Sudan seceded in 2011, taking with it most of the country's oil fields.

 

What triggered the conflict?

The civil war is the latest episode in bouts of tension that followed the 2019 ousting of long-serving President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in a coup in 1989. Huge street protests were calling for an end to his nearly three-decade rule, and the army mounted a coup to get rid of him. But civilians continued to campaign for the introduction of democracy. A joint military-civilian government was then established, but that was overthrown in another coup in October 2021.

The coup was staged by the two men at the centre of the current conflict: Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces and, in effect, the country's president. And his deputy, RSF leader Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as "Hemedti".

Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (L) and Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (R) both lead powerful forces

But then Gen Burhan and Gen Dagalo disagreed on the direction the country was going in and the proposed move towards civilian rule. The main sticking points were plans to incorporate the 100,000-strong RSF into the army, and who would then lead the new force. The suspicions were that both generals wanted to hang on to their positions of power, unwilling to lose wealth and influence.

Shooting between the two sides began on 15 April 2023, following days of tension as members of the RSF were redeployed around the country in a move that the army saw as a threat. It is disputed who fired the first shot, but the fighting swiftly escalated, with the RSF seizing much of Khartoum until the army regained control of it almost two years later in March 2025.

 

Who are the Rapid Support Forces?

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is a Darfur-based paramilitary group in Sudan established in 2013 by the government to fight Sudanese rebel groups. Who is Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo? Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also called Hemedti, is the commander of the RSF and was appointed in 2013. The RSF was formed in 2013 and has its origins in the notorious Janjaweed militia that brutally fought rebels in Darfur, where they were accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the region's non-Arab population.

 

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