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Sudanese communities continue to endure mass displacement, famine and systematic erasure as the RSF wages war on civilians.
PROFESSOR AMIRA OSMAN calls for an ethical, uncompromising approach in a message to the world – and to South Africans in particular – pointing out what true solidarity requires.
Why can’t they see us?
The first Eid after the war broke out in April 2023 found us at a mosque in Pretoria. During the dua, the imam, in all his wisdom, looked out at a congregation filled with Sudanese men — visible in their jalabiyas and imaas — and yet he ignored the Sudan. In the women’s section, adorned in our traditional tiyab, some began sobbing uncontrollably. We were too ashamed to voice it, but we held one another and cried
Every Sudanese person in that mosque had experienced displacement of family members. Many had lost property, homes, or loved ones — some through direct killing, others through lack of medical care or heartbreak. Yet the imam, in all his wisdom, looked upon his congregation and ignored them.
They killed and ate the peacocks
Our neighbourhood, located in a narrow corridor of Khartoum between the Blue and White Niles, close to the airport and army headquarters, was among the first attacked by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) when the war erupted. Within hours, residents were trapped in their homes. Within days, they realised that staying meant certain death.
When people fled, parents covered their children’s eyes to shield them from the bodies lining the roads. Within months, the neighbourhood was emptied, and RSF fighters occupied the homes. A friend who was among the last to leave left a note on her door: ‘There is no cash or gold here, just books and memories.’ A man who refused to leave was found dead months later. One of the few who remained recounted that the fighters had killed and eaten the peacocks kept by a neighbour — beloved by the children of the area.
Across the capital’s three towns, divided by rivers and linked by bridges, residents could not bury their dead in cemeteries. Courtyards of homes and educational institutions became burial grounds. Institutions — educational, medical, cultural — were destroyed. This was a deliberate erasure of a people and their heritage, an attempt to break their spirit.
Rebuilding infrastructure will be far easier than rebuilding community. After the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) recaptured the city months later, neighbourhood committees cleaned homes and streets, yet people remain reluctant to return to what became a ghost town. Today, our neighbourhood exists mainly as a WhatsApp group.
Close the door of the village behind you
A village of 12 000 people, about 120 kilometres south of Khartoum on the eastern bank of the Blue Nile, was besieged by the RSF for months before being invaded. Residents fled within hours — on foot, carrying nothing. Seven people from one extended family were murdered in that short span. Families scattered into the desert as militia members pursued them on motorbikes, firing shots into the air. It took days before people regained access to phones and networks, mostly through Starlink, to locate missing relatives.
When the final group left — struggling because they had a severely disabled person with them — a young girl wrote them a poem: ‘As you leave, close the door of the village behind you.’
An industrious, proud, peaceful people suddenly had nothing. Villagers from surrounding communities sheltered women and children in their modest homes and provided food to survivors. The legendary Sudanese hospitality deserves its own story, as do the neighbourhood committees and the community kitchens (takayya/ takiyya), twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in consecutive years.
Sudanese in the diaspora continue to support entire families and neighbourhoods, funding evacuations, food kitchens, water pumps and solar systems. When villagers finally returned after the army recaptured the area, they found looted homes, destroyed water pumps and a ruined sugar factory. Their means of livelihood had been wiped out. Hundreds of villages suffered similar — or worse — fates.
They have built a wall around the city
As villages and towns in central Sudan were liberated by the army, the militia retreated west into Darfur. The city of El Fasher endured an 18-month siege before being overwhelmed by the RSF in October 2025. During the siege, the city reached level-5 famine. The militia built a barrier around the city, trapping civilians inside and preventing food from entering.
Satellite imagery from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) shows the brutality that followed: piles of bodies and blood-soaked earth. The genocide was systematic and complete. HRL now reports no visible human activity in the city. Refugee camps receiving escapees say: ‘The numbers do not add up.’ It is believed that more than 25 000 people were killed within days.
It is ‘a resource grab, backed by Western interests seeking to secure their supply chains…’
It is not a civil war; it is not a war between two generals
What if global conflicts are interconnected — fuelled by the same sources of funding — rather than isolated events? What if these are wars against civilians, driven by attempts to seize resources and consolidate power?
Colleagues from the Congo describe it accurately: ‘This isn’t just conflict — it’s organised theft at an industrial scale.’ Sudan is facing a land grab, occupation and demographic engineering. It is the erasure of a people, their culture and their history. Meanwhile, commodities such as Gum Arabic, sesame and gold continue to flow effortlessly to global corporations. It is ‘a resource grab, backed by Western interests seeking to secure their supply chains…’
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The problem with the dominant narrative
Global media coverage often obscures the reality. The RSF’s modus operandi is terror, murder, torture and rape. This is a war on civilians, not simply a battle against the army. Displaced Sudanese seek refuge in areas controlled by the SAF.
Is the army blameless? No. But we must distinguish between corrupt individuals and state institutions. Weakening or dismantling the Sudanese army at this moment would expose civilians to greater danger. Many Sudanese report feeling safer in army-controlled zones. The army has a troubled history, but its destruction now would mean the loss of the Sudanese state.
Who do we represent when we speak? A minority elite — or a silenced majority? Our messaging must be coherent and principled.
An ethical, unambiguous message to the global community
- Reject narratives that downplay the role of the RSF or undermine the importance of the current Sudanese government, despite its flaws.
- Reject voices that minimise the role of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is funding the militia and extracting Sudanese gold.
- Understand that this is not a war between two generals. It is a war on the Sudanese people and the Sudanese state — a form of genocide, and in some areas, outright genocide.
- Recognise that land, gold and global interests lie at the heart of this conflict. Internal political debates distract from conveying the real message to South Africans and to international allies.
- Sudanese civilians fleeing RSF violence seek protection in areas controlled by the army. Why, then, are global governments not openly supporting the Sudanese government and its embassies?
Amira Osman is a Sudanese/South African architect, researcher, academic, activist, public speaker and author. She is a Professor of Architecture at the Tshwane University of Technology and holds the position of SARChI: DST/NRF/SACN Research Chair in Spatial Transformation (Positive Change in the Built Environment). She is Past President of the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA) and editor of The Built Environment in Emerging Economies Book Series.
