Exceptional cruelty: Rapid Support is pursuing a long-term strategy of starvation in Sudan.

The Guardian published a report by Kamel Ahmed and Alex Clark finding that the Rapid Support Forces have pursued a long-term starvation strategy in Darfur since 2003, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands and targeting farming communities to stop villages from producing food.

“The Rapid Support Forces have pursued a long-term starvation strategy in Sudan to achieve their goals in the ongoing war across the five states of Darfur since 2003, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands from their villages and lands”

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The report cites experts and remote-sensing and satellite data showing targeted attacks on farming communities intended to destroy local food systems, and experts warned those attacks could be classed as a war crime aimed at starving civilians.

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Researchers at Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab identified 41 farming communities in the Al-Fasher area that were attacked between March and June 2024 as part of a plan to destroy the local food supply chain before the siege of Al-Fasher.

Legal analysts and researchers say the techniques used to document these attacks represent a breakthrough that could be used to investigate war crimes in other conflicts.

The report documents the attacks on the village of Ammar Jadid, where fields that once fed the area were set on fire and the Rapid Support Forces attacked the village seven times between March and June 2024.

Families in Ammar Jadid had lived off farms growing maize and millet that fed them and the town of Al-Fasher about 32 kilometres away, but photos from summer 2024 show blackened land, burned homes and abandoned farmland, and agricultural activity had halted by September 2024.

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Yasser Abdul Latif, a teacher from nearby Jaghmar, described seeing fighters kill two people during a March 2024 raid, villagers fleeing under gunfire, attackers returning while people were burying their dead, and the subsequent burning of Ammar Jadid and Jaghmar that forced survivors to flee to Golo.

Legal experts Tom Dannenbaum and Una Hathaway say the destruction of villages, agricultural equipment and infrastructure provides strong evidence of a starvation strategy and a war crime, with Dannenbaum saying people were on the brink of famine and the things necessary for their survival were being destroyed.

“The Rapid Support Forces have pursued a long-term starvation strategy in Sudan to achieve their goals in the ongoing war across the five states of Darfur since 2003, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands from their villages and lands”

Al-Jazeera Net

Dannenbaum and Hathaway view the Humanitarian Research Lab’s remote-sensing work as a breakthrough that documents exactly what was targeted and can be presented in court, and they call for the lab’s findings to be used as evidence in international prosecutions.

The International Criminal Court has been investigating genocide crimes in Darfur since the first decade of the millennium and has called for evidence related to recent violence, including the June 2023 takeover of El Geneina that imposed a months-long siege resulting in tens of thousands killed and hundreds of thousands of Masalit community members displaced.

The UN Human Rights Council published a report last month saying the Rapid Support Forces’ attack on Al-Fasher last year bore "characteristics of genocide," and there are investigations into the "extermination attack" on Zamzam camp in April 2025, which at the time housed about 700,000 people.

Researchers using sensors that detect fires and satellite imagery found fires at attack sites rose by between 20% and 40% during the study period, a quarter of the 41 villages were attacked more than once, 68% showed no signs of people returning, and vehicles matching those used by the Rapid Support Forces were seen near sites of violence.

The Rapid Support Forces controlled most of Darfur by summer 2024, turned their sights on Al-Fasher, and during the 18-month siege of Al-Fasher prevented food, water and medicines from entering while constructing an earthen barrier at least 31 kilometres long.

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The use of siege tactics has continued in fighting against the Sudanese army in Kordofan and the Blue Nile, and Kordofan — rich in gold, oil and gum arabic — supplies 80% of the world’s gum arabic production; Kadugli and Al-Fasher have been declared to be suffering famine and millet prices rose by 1,000% compared with before the war.

The Sudanese army said it lifted the siege on Kadugli in February, but on 20 February a convoy of aid trucks that had been waiting for weeks to reach the city was struck by a drone, killing four people, and Avaaz reported that flour prices rose by 43% in January; Nathaniel Raymond warned that "what happened here can happen again" unless the Rapid Support Forces are investigated and held accountable.