Following the El Fasher massacre: Let’s push for freezing relations with the UAE… and support grassroots initiatives

Article by Revolutionary Socialists

In North Darfur, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) entered the city of El Fasher after being under siege for more than a year.

The city, which acted as an administrative and humanitarian center for migrants and internally displaced people, became a focal point in the battle for control between the Sudanese army and the RSF militia supported by the UAE. During the siege, civilians suffered from an almost complete lack of food and medicine (confirmed famine) and a massive increase in bombing and air operations. Moreover, when the Rapid Support Forces entered El Fasher, they committed atrocities beyond comprehension, with local and international sources documenting field executions, rapes, and mass killings. Many of these crimes were filmed and published by the perpetrators themselves.

Meanwhile, the army command evacuated its headquarters in the Sixth Infantry Division in a move it described as a strategic tactic, leaving the people of El Fasher in the hands of the militia, who subjected them to torture. Despite all that, the international community issued only weak statements condemning and denouncing the violence and calling for “restraint” and a “return to negotiations.”

But the fall of El Fasher was not just a military event; it was a direct result of regional economic and political alliances, at the heart of which stands the United Arab Emirates, which supplies the militia with weapons, ammunition, and drones in exchange for the flow of Sudanese gold to Dubai markets. For years, gold mined in Darfur has been a strategic commodity, It is not subject to state control but to smuggling networks in which the interests of Sudanese and Emirati businessmen overlap. International organizations such as The Center and Global Witness have documented that the proceeds from the gold business directly finance the military operations of the RSF.

The international silence cannot be separated from the economic and political interests that link Western and Gulf capital to Dubai. The UAE is not just a financier; it is a gateway for the circulation of money, gold, and commodities that finance the war. Any serious questioning of this role means dismantling an entire system of investments and relationships that are always presented as a symbol of “stability.” But the stability that the UAE builds abroad is based on chaos at home. From Yemen to Libya to Sudan, the same pattern repeats itself: supporting armed forces outside the country, financing the war economy, and then promotioning of an image of a “humanitarian mediator” in international forums. That is why talk of a “ceasefire” or “peace agreement” is meaningless without accountability for those who financed, armed, and empowered.

In light of the atrocities that accompanied the fall of El Fasher at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces, what is most striking about the scene is not only the scale of the destruction, but also the people’s reaction to it. In contrast to the official collapse, popular initiatives and takaya (community kitchens) were on the front line to rescue the people of El Fasher fleeing from one darkness after another. Local solidarity networks formed with astonishing speed, collecting donations, distributing food, and setting up shelters without waiting for instructions from an absent authority or hesitant international institutions. This action reveals a different model, in which local communities themselves take decisions and implement them in accordance with their immediate needs and interests. It is a form of civil resistance that redefines politics not as the domain of elites and weapons, but as a collective exercise of dignity and survival.

To understand this scene, it is necessary to look beyond El Fasher. Since the outbreak of war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, state institutions have completely collapsed in most areas of Sudan, and the government has failed to provide even the most basic services. In this vacuum, popular initiatives have emerged as a viable alternative: resistance committees, takaya (community kitchens) have saved thousands of families, who remained in Khartoum (and other states that received the displaced), from hunger by providing daily meals, setting up volunteer medical networks that worked to operate hospitals and health centers through the popular efforts of doctors and service providers from the region, as well as networks among themselves to cover a wider area to receive injured civilians and raise awareness of diseases that spread as part of the aftermath of the war.

Relief initiatives are run by citizens from their neighborhoods with the support of Sudanese in exile. These experiences were not merely a reaction to the disaster, but a continuation of a long process of self-organization that began with the 2019 revolution, when Sudanese taught themselves how to organize themselves in a way that serves citizens first and foremost and manage their neighborhoods, cities, markets, and hospitals in the absence of the state. As the war has dragged on, this experience has become a real lifeline: people cook, treat the wounded, take in displaced persons, and create alternative communication and information networks. It is a parallel state without official recognition, but it is more present than anything that remains of the old state institutions.

In contrast to this grassroots organization, another form of organization is emerging from above: regional and economic alliances that treat the war in Sudan as an opportunity for influence and profit. The UAE plays the most prominent role here, financing and arming the RSF in exchange for ensuring the flow of gold from the mines of Darfur to the markets of Dubai. The relationship is neither hidden nor new, but today it is more obvious: a war is being waged with Gulf money and imported weapons, while its victims are buried on the outskirts of cities. This form of alliance entrenches a new colonial reality, in which Sudan’s resources are managed from abroad, while the local community pays the price for control. While the international community remains silent or issues statements, Emirati funding becomes key for the continuation of the tragedy and one of the most invisible forms of violence in the war.

In light of this international silence and regional collusion, it is no longer enough to wait for official position papers or human rights statements. What is happening in El Fasher is a direct result of a war economy fueled by money and weapons coming from the UAE via Libya to western Sudan. Faced with this reality, popular boycott and civil pressure become necessary, not symbolic tools. Boycotting Emirati products and companies and pressuring governments and organizations to end economic and military relations with the UAE is not merely an act of protest, but an attempt to redefine responsibility at a time when the boundaries between money and blood are dissolving.

Just as the Sudanese in El Fasher have invented new forms of solidarity from below, this action can extend beyond Sudan’s borders to form a broader front of solidarity, confronting the networks of war with awareness, boycott, and organization. It has become clear that the world’s silence is no longer an option, and that continuing economic relations with the UAE means indirect participation in financing crimes in Sudan.