Photo: RomanDeckert, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (file photo of El Fasher, North Darfur, before the war).
EL FASHER / PORT SUDAN (Nov. 6, 2026) — One year after the Rapid Support Forces seized El Fasher, North Darfur’s capital remains a depopulated garrison city of fewer than 70,000 people — down from more than one million before the war — while a new RSF drone campaign against power stations has pushed Sudan’s grid toward collapse and the U.N. special envoy says talks with RSF-aligned factions are targeted before Christmas.
The anniversary reporting from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and RFI overlaps with fresh infrastructure strikes documented by The Soufan Center and Sudanese rights monitors — a combination that keeps civilians trapped between occupation in Darfur and blackouts in army-held cities.
El Fasher one year on
RSF fighters captured El Fasher on Oct. 26, 2025, after a siege of roughly 500 days, RFI reported. The U.N. Human Rights Office estimated more than 6,000 people were killed in three days during the final offensive, HRW noted; researchers reading satellite imagery have said the true toll may be far higher. Amnesty’s October 2026 briefing, based on interviews with 25 civilians and aid workers, described schools converted into detention sites, ethnic targeting of Zaghawa and Masalit detainees, ransom releases and a city where fewer than 70,000 people remain under heavy surveillance.
Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, cited in anniversary coverage, mapped human activity largely confined to the Daraja Oula neighborhood where RSF forces are based, with markets elsewhere bombed or overtaken by vegetation. IOM figures cited by RFI put those who managed to flee near 100,000, with thousands still missing.
Drone war on the power grid
While El Fasher stagnates under RSF control, the war’s center of gravity has shifted to drones. The Soufan Center’s Nov. 4 briefing said at least 15 substations have been hit since early October, according to the Sudanese group Emergency Lawyers. Strikes on Nov. 1 hit Abu Hamad in River Nile State and Al-Dabbah in Northern State — the latter hosting people displaced from El Fasher. Damage to Um Dabakir in White Nile State and transformers at Shendi further strained the grid. A Sudan Electric Holding Company employee told monitors that Merowe Dam now supplies more than 70% of the country’s remaining electricity.
Claimed by Sudanese authorities and rights monitors: the RSF is responsible for the northern power-station campaign. The RSF has not publicly claimed the latest wave. The Sudanese Armed Forces have filed complaints at the U.N. Security Council and African Union Peace and Security Council accusing Ethiopia of allowing RSF drones to launch from its territory — an allegation Addis Ababa rejects. Those diplomatic claims are attributed to the parties; they are not independently confirmed here.
Diplomacy before Christmas — without a ceasefire
U.N. Special Envoy Pekka Haavisto said Nov. 2 that the organization expects talks with the RSF and its allies before Christmas, after meetings with SAF-aligned representatives and an anti-war coalition around former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, The Soufan Center reported. A follow-on session with the RSF-aligned bloc could be held in Addis Ababa through the Quintet (U.N., AU, EU, Arab League and IGAD). Haavisto has not announced a ceasefire; Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has repeatedly rejected truce proposals that leave the RSF intact.
For continuing Sudan and Horn coverage, see The Boston Report’s Sudan hub, the Africa page and the African Union organization page.
By the numbers
| Metric | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| El Fasher fall | Oct. 26, 2025 | RFI / HRW |
| Siege length (approx.) | ~500 days | RFI |
| Killed in final three days (U.N. estimate) | >6,000 | HRW citing U.N. Human Rights Office |
| People still in El Fasher | <70,000 | Amnesty, Oct. 2026 |
| Pre-war population | >1,000,000 | Amnesty |
| Substations hit since early October | ≥15 | Emergency Lawyers via Soufan Center |
| Merowe Dam share of remaining power | >70% | Soufan Center citing utility employee |
Sources
- Amnesty International — El Fasher civilians suffer unlawful killings one year after RSF capture (Oct. 23, 2026)
- Human Rights Watch — Sudan: One Year on from the Cataclysm of El Fasher
- RFI — A year after the fall of El Fasher, Sudan’s war has left a ghost town
- The Soufan Center — Sudan’s Expanding Drone War and the Uncertain Prospects for Peace (Nov. 4, 2026)
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