New images have surfaced exposing blood-stained sand across Sudan, with bodies piling up from slaughter so widespread its imprint can be seen from space via satellite imagery, per NBC News. The streaks of red stretch across roads, fields, and neighborhoods, offering stark visual proof of the horrors unfolding in war-torn Sudan. And according to the United Nations (UN), this humanitarian crisis is a “horror show and a crime scene.”
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Amid an 18-month-long stranglehold, a reported 250,000 people in el-Fasher, western Sudan, remain trapped while the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — a Darfur-based paramilitary group — continue to wage civil war. With regional communications severed, satellite imagery is providing some of the first clear views of devastation, reminiscent of the genocidal “Land Cruiser War” of 2003.
Social media users are stunned by haunting images showing dead bodies, and clusters of debris and discoloration across the cities. “A silent witness to the ongoing genocide in Sudan,” one user responded.
The RSF was created in 2013 to combat Sudanese rebels. However, after those forces were defeated they became such a force in Sudan’s defenses that they began to challenge Sudan’s official military, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Since April 2023, both forces have ravaged Sudan due to their brutal power struggle, per Britannica.
“They opened direct fire on civilians,” Mutaz Mohamed Musa told NBC News in a voice note. Musa was one of many civilians who sought to escape el-Fasher Saturday after the military withdrew. However shortly after, they were stopped by gunfire, and circled by RSF forces in pickup trucks, per the news outlet.
“They would ask a man to run,” he detailed the executions. “Once you start running, they shoot you.” Musa was freed after his family reportedly agreed to pay a ransom over the phone.
The UN has described Sudan’s crisis as the “epicenter of suffering in the world,” with violence continuing to unfold at an alarming rate. And as the brutality continues, it’s clearer now than ever that the need for urgent global attention is long overdue.
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