Sudan civil war wipes out city that was once home to 500,000
Dozens of cities and villages in Darfur have been razed to the ground in Sudan’s brutal year-long war, new satellite pictures have revealed.
Shocking images of the city of El Geneina show large sections have been burnt down since the country was engulfed in war in April 2023.
The United Nations has estimated as many as 15,000 died in the city last year as the conflict between the army and the rival Rapid Support Force (RSF) militia supercharged the persecution of ethnic Africans in Darfur.
Targeting of black African groups such as the Masalit people has echoed the genocide and ethnic cleansing of 20 years ago.
Researchers say El Geneina was the site of massacres, mass graves and widespread rape by the Arab-dominated RSF in the first three months of the war.
Benjamin Strick, the investigations director of the Centre for Information Resilience, which gathers evidence of war crimes and abuses, said the images showed the city in April 2023 and then in March 2024.
He said: “The images show a very clear indication of some of the kind of things that happened there.
“That’s widespread burning and destruction. This has been consistent throughout Darfur.”
He said the city held around 500,000 people up until two years ago, including many refugees who had fled earlier waves of violence.
He said: “You can imagine how brutal this is for people who have already been fleeing their homes from violence to have a majority of the city basically targeted with fire.
“That’s why we are seeing such huge numbers of refugees into neighbouring Chad.”
The centre has found 100 villages across Sudan which have been burnt to the ground during the war so far.
A year into the war, it is already the world’s biggest single displacement crisis, with up to 11 million people, including four million children, forced from their homes and farms. Millions of refugees have fled into Chad and South Sudan.
Across the region, some 25 million people are now unable to feed themselves properly, with at least five million on the cusp of famine, according to the United Nations.
Worst case scenario estimates predict as many as 10,000 per day could die of hunger and disease in the coming months.
