From al-Zubayr to Hemedti: The Fall of El Fasher

Hemedti and the Fall of El Fasher

El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, has been subjected to escalating and entrenched militarization by all competing armed actors since the April 2023 outbreak of war in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan), and the Rapid Support Forces (under the command of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti). Beginning in May 2024, the city suffered a suffocating siege by the Rapid Support Forces.^[1] It was “cut off from the world. No safe roads, no reliable communications, no functioning supply chains.” Its health centers “became islands of desperation. Doctors worked without anaesthesia, without electricity, and often without hope. Yet they kept going.”^[2] Indeed, “Holding out for 500 days made el-Fasher a stark symbol of the suffering wrought by Sudan’s war.”^[3] Despite starvation, aerial bombardment, and clashes, the city resisted for eighteen months until its final fall to the Rapid Support Forces on October 26, 2025.

The fall of the city was a massive psychological blow to the people of Darfur, who have not seen peace for more than three decades. Since the mid-1980s, Darfurians have been killed, displaced, and raped — and have gone without justice. In fact, most Darfurians accuse the government of “not treating them as full citizens.”^[4] During the colonial and post-colonial era, the Nile Valley region of Sudan monopolized power and economic control at the expense of the peripheral regions. The resulting neglect was so chronic that “Darfur in the late 1990s was an increasingly marginalized, violent and frustrated place.”^[5] Although all Darfurians were marginalized, the non-Arab communities suffered the most due to government partiality in favor of the Arabs.^[6]

While severe neglect and marginalization go back to the late nineteenth century, post-independence governments, coupled with party politics and the state’s inability to control the border, worsened the situation, opening Darfur to Libyan and Chadian influences. By the late 1980s “Governance from Khartoum had all but vanished from Darfur,”^[7] and there were widespread conflicts across Darfur and all the way to the Chadian border. Arabs versus non-Arabs, herders versus herders, and nomads versus nomads fought until a reconciliation meeting between Arabs and non-Arabs took place in 1989. The terms of the resulting peace agreement put responsibility on the central government, which should have guaranteed peace and security in the region, expelled Chadian and Libyan forces, and controlled arms smuggling that had contributed to the conflicts. But, the government clearly failed in all aspects, including implementing the terms of the peace agreement. Not long after the agreement was signed, war broke out, with one accusing the other, and both the Arabs and the non-Arabs blamed the government for being “absent from the most vulnerable conflict areas.”^[8] Eventually two main rebel groups — the Sudan Liberation Movement, and the Justice and Equality Movement — representing largely the non-Arab communities (Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit), were formed. These rebels escalated targeting military positions at the beginning of 2003.

The regime of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s head of state from 1989 until 2019, unleashed the Janjaweed militia (which would later transform into the Rapid Support Forces) to quell the rebellion. Villages were attacked and burned, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee; the killings, destruction of property, and widespread fear made a return home impossible. Many who fled were sheltered at the Zamzam and Abu Shok camps near El Fasher, while others fled to Chad. With the villages destroyed and insecurity widespread, the Zamzam and Abu Shok camps became the only places where humanitarian agencies could deliver food, water, and medical care. Even so, civilians in the camps faced bombardment, forced evictions, and severe shortages as violence escalated. The Janjaweed militia and Sudanese army attacks significantly weakened the rebels but the rebels persisted, and some of them signed a peace agreement in 2020 in Juba, South Sudan, with the al-Burhan administration following the fall of the al-Bashir regime.

When the current war broke out in April 2023, Darfur once again became its epicenter. According to Jérôme Tubiana, “In West Darfur, the war between Sudan’s military and paramilitary had only allowed an older, nastier violence to resume, with civilians targeted based on their ethnicity, like 20 years before. Elsewhere in Darfur, many civilians were also killed and injured, but most appear victims of crossfire and indiscriminate shelling and bombings.”^[9]

El Fasher hosted the army division headquarters as well as the Joint Forces that was created on April 27, 2023, to protect civilians.^[10] The Joint Force was created by Darfur armed movements that signed the 2020 Juba peace agreement including Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Minni Minnawi and Justice and Equality Movement.^[11] In November 2023, these forces finally joined the army after having remained neutral for seven months.^[12] Among other reasons, the Darfur rebels could not remain neutral following the Rapid Support Forces’ massacre of civilians.

By May 2024 “the RSF have besieged El Fasher from all directions, preventing the entry of goods and supplies into the city, leaving thousands of starving citizens trapped amidst the fighting. Residents have resorted to eating ‘ambaz’ food normally given to livestock, to survive.”^[13]

Though an epicenter of the war in Darfur, “El Fasher is one of Sudan’s most diverse cities, and it finds a solid emotional harmony among its social components, so it is difficult to dismantle or divide them on the basis of their ethnicity or tribal lines.”^[14] After Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, fell to the Rapid Support Forces in October 2023, El Fasher’s inhabitants “rushed to establish a solid resistance through a ‘Popular Support’ Committee; they resolved to defend El Fasher and its people at any cost.” The resistance was supported by the army and its allies.^[15] Subsequently, with massive militarization in El Fasher, clashes broke out in the city. The Rapid Support Forces alone had thousands of fighters in Darfur and across the country. Hemedti has “claimed his force has grown significantly, stating its numbers rose from 143,000 at the start of the war to over 500,000 currently, excluding allied forces.”^[16] The Rapid Support Forces “tried to make up for their lack of aircraft by taking control of airports and destroying government planes, as the [Darfur] rebels did in el-Fasher exactly 20 years before.”^[17] Eventually the Rapid Support Forces used drones and determined to capture the city at any cost. The United Nations has reported that both the army and the Rapid Support Forces employed unmanned aerial vehicles during the war.^[18]

Just as the army and its allies were determined to defend El Fasher, the Rapid Support Forces fighters were also intent on taking the city, the last remaining major city in Darfur. The Darfur rebels were particularly experienced in both urban and guerilla warfare. They were also “motivated by the spirit of revenge, as they recall the Janjaweed violations against their people and the abuses that they have experienced for many years from these militias. This is in addition to feeling an emotional connection to the plight of their families.”^[19]

Yet, the Rapid Support Forces’ siege was too long, too insulating, and took an immense toll on all, despite brave resistance. According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), “From the beginning of the conflict on 15 April 2023 until 24 October 2025,” there were “nearly 400 incidents of violence targeting civilians in El Fasher and surrounding areas. Those incidents — over 55% of which were recorded in 2025 — led to over 1,400 reported deaths.” The city was put under a total communication blackout as the Rapid Support Forces “built a complete encirclement of the city using sand berms, trapping civilians inside, and those trying to flee were targeted and killed.”^[20]

Starvation was rampant, and the allied forces lacked necessary resources. The inhabitants were unable to get access to basic necessities. While some civilians were able to flee to nearby towns, it was reported in December 2025 that some “177,000 civilians remain trapped in El-Fasher, according to the UN’s migration agency, after the RSF built a 35-mile (56 kilometre) earthen berm sealing off food, medicine and escape routes.”^[21] Across the country, “the war has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, and triggered the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis. Both sides stand accused of widespread atrocities.”^[22]

Despite significant international appeals to both sides to de-escalate, clashes continued in El Fasher. The Rapid Support Forces ignored United Nations warnings to end the siege of the city, and in October 2025 their “Major General Ali Yaqoub mobilized tens of thousands from South Darfur, East Darfur, West Darfur and central Darfur to attack El Fasher ignoring international sentiment.” Using “all kinds of lethal weapons,”^[23] they took over the city, forcing the army and its allies to withdraw. After “500-days”^[24] of brutal siege, El Fasher finally fell on October 26, 2025, to the Rapid Support Forces. This third fall of El Fasher “signaled the start of a harrowing chapter of human rights violations, with growing allegations of crimes amounting to genocide and ethnic cleansing.”^[25]

Including the Zamzam and Abu Shok internally displaced persons camps, the population of El Fasher prior to the siege is believed to have been “1.5 million.”^[26] By April 2025, that number had plummeted to 900,000."^[27] Though predominately inhabited by non-Arabs, El Fasher has been home to many communities from various areas of Sudan. While the Zaghawa are a large community inside the city, the Fur, Berti, Masalit, and Tama live mainly in the displacement camps.^[28] As mentioned earlier, El Fasher “is defined by a strong social cohesion within its tribal components and plays an influential role in political decision-making;”^[29] however, more than thirty years of tensions significantly weakened indigenous mechanisms of handling local conflicts. Since the 2003 escalation of war, millions have been displaced and the social fabric of the society has been shredded. Tubiana rightly concludes that “the fatigue of 20 years of war may not yet be enough to extinguish the fire.”^[30]

In addition to modern weapons used in the sieges, other factors helped the Rapid Support Forces to control the city. Hemedti was able to forge alliances with other armed and civilian groups;

these alliances brought several local armed groups with tribal affiliations in Darfur into the fight on the side of the RSF, including the Justice and Equality Movement, the Suleiman Sandal faction, and the Sudan Liberation Movement-Transitional Council, led by Al-Hadi Idris, along with units from Abdel Aziz al- Hilu’s faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (North), which is active in the Nuba Mountains of Kordofan. This alliance provided the RSF with crucial logistical and intelligence support in the operational area around El-Fasher, contributing to its capture of the city.^[31]

In addition, the army’s loss of Bara town to the Rapid Support Forces demoralized their fighting spirit. Bara served as “a key staging point for the army in its bid to break the siege of El-Fasher.”^[32] The fall of El-Fasher represents a major turning point for the civil war in Sudan, enabling the Rapid Support Forces to control most of Darfur.^[33]

The inhabitants of the city and its environs suffered the most brutal human rights violations. According to the Ayin Network reporter from the city, “We documented serious violations by the RSF, and we also observed the participation of members of the army and joint forces in looting citizens’ homes and selling their wooden roofs as cooking fuel.” The atrocities in “El Fasher buried all international norms and laws, and the international community failed to stop a humanitarian catastrophe that occurred in the stricken city.”^[34]

Despite brutal atrocities and wars throughout its history, El Fasher’s role as an administrative, spiritual, and social center is undisputed. Its last sultan, Ali Dinar, and the city itself “became symbols of national steadfastness and resistance” for all Sudanese. Even its most recent fall in October 2025 could not end the national symbolism of the city. ^[35] El Fasher “has a special place in the consciousness of many Sudanese people. For them, it is more than the capital of North Darfur State in western Sudan. It is deeply rooted, historically and culturally, in the national identity.”^[36] Once the current war ends, “Sudan’s recovery depends on restoring its collective memory and acknowledging the historical roles of cities like el-Fasher.” In addition, “recovery requires addressing the psychological and social wounds left by the war.”^[37] The next section addresses this heritage and national symbolism of the city.

The Foundation of El Fasher

El Fasher — Arabic for “the palace” or “royal camp” — rose to prominence as the political center of the Keira ruling dynasty of the Darfur Sultanate through successive phases of territorial consolidation. The Darfur Sultanate appears to have originated as a Fur polity centered in the Jebel Marra Mountains and adjacent western regions, possibly as early as the fifteenth century. Regional oral traditions describe a long-standing trajectory of state formation, asserting that the Daju and Tunjur polities preceded the rise of the Fur state.^[38] By the mid-seventeenth century, the Fur emerged as the dominant power under the leadership of Sulayman Solong (ruled ca. 1650–1680).^[39] Eventually, the region was named after them: Dar Fur, “land of the Fur.”^[40] Sulayman expanded the Fur sultanate beyond its Jebel Marra stronghold, marking the eventual emergence of El Fasher as a fixed political center. By about 1700, Sulayman’s successors had moved their royal camps down to the plains west of the mountains and rapidly consolidated their authority over the other peoples of the region.^[41]

Sulayman also made Islam the official religion of his court, initiating the gradual Islamization of the sultanate. Foreign Muslim scholars and preachers arrived during his reign, and several notable religious families trace their origins to this period. Sulayman’s reign is widely regarded as a pivotal era in the history of the Fur sultanate, laying the foundations for its territorial expansion and its increasing engagement with the wider world.^[42]

Between 1720 and 1750, a series of conflicts with Wadai, the neighboring polity to the west, appears to have curtailed Darfur’s expansion in that direction. At the same time, expanding cultural and commercial ties throughout the eighteenth century increasingly drew the sultanate into the orbit of the riverain Sudan and, more distantly, Egypt. By around 1750, the sultanate had begun exporting slaves, camels, and other commodities to Egypt on an expanding scale via the Forty Days Road. This eastward commercial orientation, which progressively shifted the sultanate from a predominantly “African” milieu toward an Islamic–Arabic one, culminated in the conquest of Kordofan under sultan Muhammad Tayrab (ruled 1752/3–1785/6) in 1785 — a region of considerable commercial significance situated between Darfur and the White Nile. By the close of the eighteenth century, the sultanate encompassed more than 300,000 square miles, governing a diverse array of peoples and providing the principal share of Egypt’s trade with the African interior.^[43]

Conquest had reshaped the kingdom’s ethnic composition, bringing an increasing number of non-Fur groups under its authority. Over successive reigns, the sultan’s royal encampment shifted from the western to the eastern side of Jebel Marra. Sultan Muhammad Tayrab’s relocation to Ril around 1770 marked the decisive turning point, and his successor, Abd al-Rahman (ruled 1787/8–1803), completed the transition by establishing a permanent capital at El Fasher by 1791–92. Although this move did not signify an abandonment of the ancestral homeland, it reflected the kingdom’s growing eastward orientation in political, religious, and commercial affairs.^[44]

Internal developments within the sultanate led to the establishment of El Fasher as the permanent capital. Factors include the sultans’ increasing reliance on slaves as soldiers, laborers, and administrators; the growing influence of Islam and the Arabic language on local identities; and the gradual displacement of lineage-based chiefs by a wealthy and powerful court elite surrounding the sultan. These processes were both symbolized and reinforced by the establishment of a permanent capital at El-Fasher. Yet the ascendancy of courtiers, generals, merchants, and holy men over the older chiefly order was never complete, and beyond the capital and its immediate environs, tribal cohesion remained strong.^[45]

El Fasher grew from a royal camp into a capital, then into a major urban center that still anchors the region today. Administrative quarters include offices for scribes, residences for ministers and court officials and judicial and tax administration houses. In addition, there were barracks-style tent rows for elite troops, horse and camel lines, and armories and supply tents. Merchants, craftsmen, and traders, food markets and caravan staging areas were present. El Fasher was where laws were proclaimed, tributes were collected, foreign envoys were received, justice was administered, and major festivals and ceremonies were held. It was the symbolic heart of the sultanate. Its foundation transformed the sultanate from a mobile, mountain-based kingdom into a centralized, urban-focused state and eventually the physical embodiment of the Darfur Sultanate’s power. El Fasher also became a center of Islamic learning in the Sahel. It famously became the site where the Kiswa — the black cloth that covers the Kaaba in Mecca — was produced and dispatched annually, signaling Darfur’s status as a peer to the major Islamic powers of the time.^[46]

While established by Abd al-Rahman, the city reached its architectural peak under Sultan Ali Dinar (ruled 1898–1916), who built the great palace that now serves as the city’s primary museum. Unlike many modern Sudanese cities, El Fasher originated as a sovereign imperial capital rather than a colonial administrative outpost similar to Khartoum, the country’s capital. Its historical significance is anchored in its role as the seat of the Keira Sultanate, which ruled Darfur for centuries as an independent state before its forced integration into modern Sudan in 1916.

Al-Zubayr and the First Fall of El Fasher

The sultanate, with its center at El Fasher, continued to thrive with the addition of resource-rich territories and commercial networks with Sudanic Africa, North Africa, and beyond; however, outside groups soon began encroaching upon it. In 1821, Kordofan was seized by a Turco-Egyptian invasion force, marking the beginning of Egypt’s gradual occupation of Sudan. Although the Egyptians defeated the Darfur governor of Kordofan at Bara, they were still unable to advance to El Fasher, even though Sultan Muhammad al-Fadl ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman was not planning to retake Kordofan. By October 1821, Muhammad Ali of Egypt decided against invading Darfur because “The Nuba hills and the wide prairies of the Baqqāra Arabs were still defiant; there were no troops, and still less funds, to spare in an exhausting march along the sand-ridden road to al-Fashār.”^[47] Although Darfur was periodically threatened by its powerful neighbor (Egyptian-occupied Kordofan), its eventual downfall in 1874 came from another direction: the northern Sudanese trader al-Zubayr Pasha Rahma, who had established a vast trading and slaving empire south of the sultanate.

Al-Zubayr Rahma al-Mansur (1830–1913) was from a Ja’ali Arab community north of Khartoum. In 1857 he went to the Bahr el-Ghazal region and began state building and commercial enterprise “by accident.”^[48] He was not from a wealthy family. His father, although influential in the community that settled at Gimmeyab, “does not appear to have been rich. Zebehr at least was not rich.” In 1857 when his cousin joined an expedition to areas beyond Bahr el Ghazal, he went out to try to bring him back home but unwittingly ended up joining the party and working for that expedition. Gradually he built his own trading business and empire based at Deim Zubayr town, which he founded in the Bahr el-Ghazal region,^[49] today’s South Sudan.

By the late 1860s, al Zubayr was “the most prominent and successful of the merchant princes operating in the Bahr al-Ghazal.”^[50] He traded in slaves and ivory; however, antislavery movements by Egyptian and European explorers in the Nile Valley began to put pressure on him. Therefore, “he arranged with the Baqqara tribes of southern Darfur for his slave caravans to pass through their territory northward, bypassing the Nile.”^[51] Toward the end of the 1860s, “he attained the position of practically an independent ruler.” The Egyptian government’s expeditionary force “was completely defeated by him, and the Egyptian authorities, realizing with what a commanding character they were confronted, made him Governor of the district.”^[52]

Al-Zubayr was angered by an armed attack on his caravan in the Baggara region to the south of Darfur. In 1873 armed men attacked al-Zubayr’s caravan, reportedly at the instigation of the Sultan of Darfur, Ibrahim. That led to confrontation with Darfur, which was at the time in the middle of a succession crisis at El Fasher. Sultan Muhammad al-Husayn (ruled 1838–1873) did not have a clear designated successor until his son Ibrahim Qarad eventually assumed power in April 1873.^[53] It was, therefore, at the weakest time for the sultanate. In an interview with Flora Shaw, al-Zubayr stated ‘“that I wanted nothing else from the Sultan of Darfour, than that they should put down man-hunting on their roads, and allow the caravan to pass in peace.”’^[54] Al-Zubayr “believed that where trade flowed unimpeded, peace, order, knowledge, and every blessing of organized society must follow in its train.”^[55]

Initially, al-Zubayr fought and defeated those Baggara Arabs who blocked his caravan; however, a few of them fled to the Sultan of Darfur and encouraged the sultan to fight al-Zubayr. Al-Zubayr stated, “The Sultan of Darfour, listening to the representations of those Bedouins who had fled to him before Zebehr, had made up his mind to fight the new conqueror.” The sultan also “protested against the compact between Zebehr and the Egyptian Government, claiming Shekka as part of his territory, and denying the right of the Egyptian Government to dispose of it. He summoned Zebehr to evacuate it.”^[56] Al-Zubayr refused and replied,

‘This country has been subject to you for thirty-six years. During the whole of that time slave-hunting has continued here, and the roads remain unsafe. You have not the power to keep order. No one can but I. Several times before me you have tried and failed. Now you want me to leave it, but I will not. I am determined to assure the safety of these roads.’^[57]

The sultan still decided to fight but the two kept exchanging letters; indeed, they exchanged a total of eight letters addressing the issue. Al-Zubayr “endeavoured to reason with him, and offered to submit the question to a council of wise men, promising on his part, if free discussion were allowed, to accept the arbitration of the council. The Sultan’s final answer was, ‘I am a king and you are nothing. I will not reason with you;’ and he commenced operations of war.”^[58] Al-Zubayr “had no desire but to put down slave-hunting, in order to clear the roads. In the eight letters which passed between him and the Sultan, this is clearly set forth as the cause of the war.”^[59]

This shows that economics was at the center of the war. Due to Turko-Egyptian pressure in the White Nile trade route, al-Zubayr wanted to conduct business along the Baggara and Darfur region, and any hindrance to that impacted him. His empire also lay to the south of Darfur, and the northerly trade route was naturally the most viable option.^[60] Darfur was at the center of the Forty Days Road to Egypt and also had important networks to north Africa and Sudanic Africa.

Sultan Ibrahim raised some “40,000, including 9000 cavalry and 23 cannon” led by “a man named Shakta” against Al-Zubayr’s “nearly 9000, including some cavalry but no artillery.” In July 1873, al-Zubayr’s some 5000 men fought the sultan “at a place twenty-four hours’ march north-west of Shekka” and al-Zubayr’s forces were defeated and retreated toward Shekka. The sultan’s forces pursued them and fighting continued. Eventually, al-Zubayr’s forces received reinforcement and were replenished; their position improved, and they fought back. The sultan’s army commander “Shakta had fallen. A little later and the rout of the enemy was complete.”^[61]

After the loss, “the Bedouins who had given their allegiance to the Sultan of Darfour, left him and transferred their services to Zebehr, thereby increasing his cavalry considerably;”^[62] however, the sultan’s forces regrouped and continued to fight and “advance[d] upon Dara [locality]. He took that town and fortified it strongly, digging all round it a ditch which was 12 feet deep and 12 feet wide. Here he sustained a siege which lasted for four months and thirteen days.”^[63] Then “At the end of that time the Sultan of Darfour came in person with fresh troops, and there was a great battle, in which Zebehr was completely victorious, and Sultan Hussein lost his life.” After his victories, al-Zubayr sent messengers to El Fasher, stating, “‘Come and submit to me. My soldiers are wild with victory. It is better that I should not advance to you; send out to me and save your city and your children, and those yet unborn.’ They listened to him and submitted themselves, and he became master of Darfour.”^[64] Clashes inside the city were thus averted. Altogether, al-Zubayr’s campaign to conquer El Fasher “took nearly a year.”^[65]

Meanwhile, the Khedive Ismail, the ruler of Egypt and Sudan at the time, in February 1874 “declared war on the sultanate,” blaming the aggression of Darfur and using suppression of the slave trade as an excuse. ^[66] Subsequently, the Egyptian Governor-General of Sudan, Ismail Ayub, invaded Darfur from Kordofan but, by the time they arrived, al-Zubayr’s forces had already defeated the Darfur forces and the sultan had been killed. Nevertheless, Ismail Ayub took control and set up the Egyptian administration in Darfur.^[67] Al-Zubayr protested.

Not long after he defeated the sultan, al-Zubayr “had received private information of the feeling of fear which his rapid conquests had excited in Cairo. He had been told that the Khedive [of Egypt] dreaded to see him establish an independent empire on the borders of Egypt.”^[68] Al-Zubayr “did not contemplate this and did not wish, for the sake of his family established near Khartoum, to embroil himself in anyway with the Government, he acquiesced at once in the orders received, sent for Ismail Yacoub, offering him a safe conduct, together with all the assistance that it was in his power to give, and early in 1875 resigned the government of Darfour into his hands.”^[69] Al-Zubayr was detained in Cairo and never returned to govern Darfur. The Egyptian administration took over Darfur’s administrative structure.

At the same time, the Keira dynasty retained a strong loyalty among the populace and continued to resist both Turco-Egyptian and later Mahdist (1885–98) authority by basing themselves in their historical stronghold of Jebel Marra. The Egyptians were forced out by the Mahdist forces that took control of all of Sudan including Darfur. The Mahdists administered Darfur and Sudan until the return of the Egyptian and British forces in 1896–98. The Anglo-Egyptian authorities took control of Sudan and set up an Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in Sudan but let the grandson of Sultan Muhammad al-Fadl (ruled 1803–58), Ali Dinar govern Darfur. During the Mahdiyya, Ali Dinar was kept at Omdurman, the Mahdist capital, but following the defeat of the Mahdists, he quickly moved to Darfur along with his supporters and took control. Ali Dinar acknowledged Anglo-Egyptian sovereignty by agreeing to pay 500 pounds annually.^[70] With the assistance of survivors of the sultanate, Ali Dinar was able to revive the sultanate and rebuild El Fasher.^[71]

One might ask why the British allowed Ali Dinar to govern Darfur, rather than annexing Darfur themselves at the time of the reconquest of Sudan in 1898. Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer), the British Consul-General of Egypt, stated of the decision:

I am inclined to think that it would be advisable to govern through him [Ali Dinar], rather than to attempt to administer the country directly through an Anglo-Egyptian agency. The Province of Darfur is remote and difficult of access. In the event of any serious trouble occurring there, it would probably be difficult, and would certainly be costly, to assert Anglo-Egyptian authority. I cannot believe that the province would, under any circumstances, yield any considerable revenue. It would more probably prove an additional financial burden.^[72]

In addition, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the British commander of the Anglo-Egyptian force that occupied Sudan and the first Governor-General of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, “was very averse to occupying Darfur. It would cost a lot and bring in little, and be very unpopular with the army. It is so far off.”^[73] Both Lord Cromer and Kitchener accepted Ali Dinar’s rule of Darfur. He had established full authority including border areas and “paid in full the small annual tribute required of him.”^[74] Ali Dinar himself wrote a letter to Governor-General Kitchener in 1899 and stated that “When I came to Darfur, I found it in a disturbed state and I quieted the inhabitants.”^[75] His rule was “undisputed” and “Darfur maintained its virtual independence.”^[76] Ali Dinar’s relations with Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was “the most friendly character,”^[77] sometimes “cold and frequently tinged with suspicion, but generally correct.”^[78] Despite Ali Dinar’s return and the restoration of the Darfur sultanate, it can be safely concluded that the fall of El Fasher to al-Zubayr in 1874 marked a watershed moment that heralded the eventual end of the sultanate.^[79]

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Fall of El Fasher

When the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was established in 1899, El Fasher town had “10,000 inhabitants”^[80] with “a few fine buildings.” Charles Gordon, the British Governor-General of Sudan under Egyptian authority, “had a fort built there in 1879, and three years later made Slatin Pasha Governor of” Darfur. Slatin administered Darfur “until he surrendered to the Mahdi in 1883.” Darfur saw relative peace under Ali Dinar, and El Fasher was redeveloped with new buildings including a mosque^[81] and “a new two-storey square-shaped palace” considered as “one of the finest indigenous buildings in the Sudan.”^[82]

Toward the end of Ali Dinar’s reign, however, living conditions were not ideal. Relations with the Baggara and other tribes were violent, and a famine that hit Darfur in 1913 weakened Ali Dinar’s administration. Gradually, the British lost hope in him. Relations between the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Ali Dinar turned sour when the First World War broke out. Ali Dinar was suspected of siding with the Ottoman Empire. In June 1915 the governor of the neighboring Kordofan, R.V. Savile recommended invading Darfur, stating that “the best defensive is a vigorous offensive” even though there was no compelling evidence that Ali Dinar posed a significant threat. ^[83]

The Anglo-Egyptian authorities had begun to feel that Ali Dinar’s attitude had been “unsatisfactory and truculent” for a while.^[84] Ali Dinar was deemed a “fanatical ruler” and the Governor-General of Sudan, Sir Reginald Wingate, strongly advocated for the occupation of Darfur. Indeed, Wingate “arranged and directed” the invasion.^[85] By April 1915, Ali Dinar “formally renounced his allegiance to the Sudan Government and proclaimed his adhesion to the cause of our enemies.”^[86] Reportedly, the sultan “concentrated a force of about 2000 to 3000 at place called Jebelhella near the Kordofan border.”^[87] Wingate, “began secretly arming Baggara Arabs in Darfur against the sultan.” Wingate was using tensions between the sultan and the Arab groups as a weapon. Accordingly, “in September 1915, the son of Musa Madibbu of the Rizayqat visited al-Uddaya in Kordofan and went away with the promise of 300 rifles and 30,000 rounds of ammunition; in December, 200 rifles were approved for the Kababish, the nomads of northern Kordofan long at odds with Ali Dinar.”^[88]

The British made significant military preparations including the deployment of aircraft for the first time in Darfur. The aircraft were brought from Egypt. Due to the distance and difficult landscape, unusual measures had to be adopted to transport a force of 3,000 men to the desert battleground:

The base at Khartoum is 500 miles by rail from the nearest seaport, thence to railhead is another 428 miles, and from this point the expeditionary force, with its stores, guns, aeroplanes, and other bulky equipment, had to proceed across a desolate tract of roadless country for nearly 400 miles and there occupy the stronghold of an enemy numerically superior and armed with modern rifles. To facilitate the task, a makeshift motor road was prepared, over which aeroplanes with their repair shops were taken, as well as the other supplies of the force. When this motor-road was ready, the camel transport was supplemented by a mechanical transport service from railroad to Nahud, by which means the rapid convoy of supplies, on which depended the safety of the force, was ensured.^[89]

The airmen “had to move south at very short notice, and travel by sea, rail, and desert track for 2,000 miles before they could reach the barren spot from which they were to operate.” On May 12, 1916 the aircraft “flew over El Fasher.”^[90] The air force played a crucial role, especially “in reconnoitring and attacking the Sultan’s positions and also provided a tangible symbol of the might, reach and power of the British Army.”^[91] On May 15, Anglo-Egyptian forces led by Lieutenant Colonel (later Brigadier-General) Philip James Vandeleur Kelly moved closer to El Fasher. On May 22, the two forces met at Beringia, located twelve miles from El Fasher city, and Ali Dinar’s forces were defeated.^[92] After their victory, the Anglo-Egyptian force “marched on until sunset and halted just short of the enemy’s capital. There was no news of Sultan Ali Dinar who had discreetly excused himself from the engagement, and it was thought probable that he and his remaining reserves would defend the palace, a large range of mud and sandstone buildings surrounded by thick, bullet-proof walls.”^[93] Later it was found that Ali Dinar fled with his supporters and eluded capture for months.

After the battle at Beringia, “aeroplanes threw bombs on a large body of men fleeing from Fasher with Ali Dinar. The latter, when last seen, had a following of only 300 persons and was faced by a journey of one and a half days across waterless desert before he could reach Gebel Marra.”^[94] On May 23, 1916, El Fasher fell^[95] “without opposition. Four guns, numerous rifles, a significant haul of ammunition and a plant for the manufacture of gunpowder were captured. It was now inhabited by women, children and old men.”^[96] Also, “A few aged slaves, too feeble to care what fate held in store, remained in the dead silence of their masters’ homes; otherwise the whole place was completely deserted.”^[97]

Afterward, “Proclamations were sent forth to the outlying villages in the south and west where the teeming population of El Fasher had spread themselves, becoming highly unpopular as unwanted guests. The Sultan refused to surrender, ever moving from place to place with a following of ‘die-hards,’ faithful to the old order.”^[98] But “About half the normal population of 55,000” returned after fleeing from the city.^[99]

Ali Dinar from his Jebel Marra hideout “opened correspondence with the Sudan Government, attributing responsibility for recent events to his subordinates, renouncing the sultanate, and offering to surrender on the condition that he and his family be allowed to retire peacefully to their lands.” Wingate, however, “rejected this proposal outright” believing “that the sultan was merely stalling, attempting to preserve a quasi-independent enclave, much as his predecessors had sought to do during the Turkiyya.” As a result, “When Ali Dinar relocated to Kulme, southwest of Jabal Marra, in October 1916, an Anglo-Egyptian force pursued him. On 6 November, he was located, ambushed, and killed.”^[100] Next to his body “lay his wounded son, Mohammed Fadl and close by were two more sons, Husseyn and Seif el Din, waiting to surrender.”^[101] Eventually, “Order returned to the region and for those who participated in the campaign, the reward of the silver Khedive’s Sudan Medal of 1910, with clasp ‘Darfur 1916’, followed. The £500,000 (£30,500,000 today) bill for the cost of the expedition was sent to the Egyptian Government in Cairo for payment by the Egyptian taxpayers.”^[102]

The fall of El Fasher to the British ended the sultanate of Darfur, whose collapse started with the first fall of the city to al-Zubayr in 1874. As a result of that occupation, “An area of 150,000 square miles” was added to Sudan. It was also hailed as “a military feat of some distinction”^[103] and “In celebration of the occupation of El Fasher, the Sirdar [Wingate] ordered Saturday to be observed as a holiday by the Egyptian Army.”^[104] The occupation of Darfur “must be a source of gratification to Sultan Hussein [of Egypt] that the last province of the territory the conquest of which was begun by his great-grand father [Mohamed Ali] should be regained in his reign.”^[105] As noted earlier, during Mohamad Ali’s occupation of Sudan (1821), Darfur was not occupied. It is interesting that both the Egyptian authorities and the British did not occupy Darfur despite taking control of the rest of Sudan. Therefore, Darfur was only incorporated into Sudan in 1916. On both occasions, El Fasher escaped massive displacements and destruction — because the inhabitants surrendered.

Al-Zubayr and Hemedti: Merchant-Warlord Business Model

The lives of both al-Zubayr Pasha Rahma Mansur (c. 1830–1913) and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti, born ca. 1974) were defined by their meteoric rise to power. Al-Zubayr raised a private army of thousands, many of whom were enslaved soldiers and dominated the trade of ivory and, most notably, slaves. At his peak, he ruled a large area in today’s South Sudan and parts of the Central African Republic, essentially operating as an independent sultan. Then he added Darfur in 1874 with the fall of El Fasher. He used modern weapons against the old Darfur sultanates’ weapons. When he defeated the Sultan’s forces in Darfur, his forces consisted of thousands of highly trained enslaved soldiers armed with modern Remington repeating rifles.^[106]

Al-Zubayr utilized the Zariba system — a network of fortified trading camps that doubled as military garrisons. This allowed him to maintain supply lines and project power deep into hostile territory, effectively strangling the Darfur Sultanate’s trade routes before the final invasion. His forces’ loyalty was to al-Zubayr personally. His model of a private slave army was later adopted by other warlords. The rise of Hemedti was also meteoric and unexpected — an “enigma” ^[107] even for his own Mahariya clan of the Abbala Arabs.

Hemedti rose from humble beginnings, having been born to a family of camel herders, and began his career tending camels. His fortune came when his camels were reportedly attacked by gunmen and several of his family members lost their lives; he decided to take up arms as a Janjaweed militia member.^[108] According to one of his early assistants, Muhammad Saed, Hemedti “first took up arms in the western Darfur region after men who attacked his trade convoy killed about 60 people from his family and looted camels.”^[109] Then, somehow, he was able to meet president al-Bashir and secure “his trust.”^[110] Eventually, he transitioned from camel tender to gold trader, which helped him attain massive wealth and power. Like al-Zubayr, who created an army that only trusted him; Hemedti “recruited massively from within his own tribe”^[111] and earned their loyalty.

While many African armies of the time were still using muzzle-loading muskets or spears, al-Zubayr’s forces were equipped with modern, breech-loading rifles. The noted Darfur scholar R.S. O’Fahey states that “the furious Darfur onslaught was shattered by the rifle-fire of al-Zubayr’s men” and ‘“At that time the people [of Darfur] did not know of war with rifles.”’^[112] Indeed, “Zubayr prevailed against the Sultan after two days of fighting, largely due to his advantage in military technology. Zubayr’s men had French rifles of recent make, and imported gunpowder, while the Sultan’s men had older Turkish flintlock muskets, and gunpowder made in Darfur.”^[113] This technological advantage was the primary reason his relatively small army of soldiers was able to defeat other states in the Bahr el-Ghazal. As we have seen, Hemedti also used modern technology, including drones that neutralized the army’s air superiority especially over El Fasher. The army headquarters inside the city were cut off from reinforcements that eventually led to the fall of the city.

Al-Zubayr was highly selective in his recruitments. According to his own accounts, when trade caravans returned from the south to his headquarters at Deim Zubayr, he would personally inspect the captives. He chose the best candidates. Once selected, the recruits underwent a transformation that was revolutionary for the region at the time. In September 1863 he stayed a few months in Khartoum “selling his wares, recruiting some 200 men and buying arms and ammunition. It was probably during this stay that he first recruited men who were to become famous, including Rabih Fadl Allah.”^[114] But most of his soldiers “came from the raiding zone.”^[115] He “forcibly and systematically recruited young men into his forces.” His weapons were “imported from Egypt and given a rudimentary but adequate training.” His forces “who came to number over 12,000, were to play a crucial role in later Sudanese affairs,”^[116] including during the Mahdiyya (1885–1898).

In addition, al-Zubayr positioned himself as a father figure, and he provided his soldiers with good rations, uniforms, homes, and wives, ensuring that their entire social world revolved around his service. It was a major attraction to the extent that “Men volunteered for life service in Zubayr’s army, because it was both better paying and more respectable than with other companies, the pressure on them was very great, and the fear of doing nothing and being captured themselves kept able bodied men from subsistence living.”^[117] Rapid Support Forces fighters were also highly equipped and better paid in addition to looting properties.

On all three occasions of the fall of El Fasher, the inhabitants of Darfur became victims to such military training and the latest weapons. During the British invasion in 1916, The Times reported the moral impact of their aircraft: “A most interesting feature of the whole operations was the use made of aeroplane in desert warfare. Its appearance exercised a great moral effect.” It had a huge military advantage: “As the Sultan’s troops were emerging from the south end of the capital the day after the battle Lieutenant J.C. Slessor Royal Flying Corps, circled over and bombed them.” In addition, aircraft was also used to locate the fugitive sultan: “Another notable feat was a flight of eight hours over the desert to find the enemy’s troops — ‘a very remarkable performance under local flying conditions,’ with the petrol supply affected by the great temperature.”^[118] The use of the latest military technology at each time had a massive psychological effect on the people of El Fasher. Indeed, the use of drones by the Rapid Support Forces was particularly significant: “The use of sophisticated jamming equipment by the Rapid Support Forces blocked communication between the defenders, contributing to a breakdown of command and control and the ultimate collapse of the final defence by armed civilians.”^[119]

It is important to remember that while the al-Zubayr forces were a highly effective military force, they were also the primary tool used to expand the slave trade. Their speed and firepower allowed al-Zubayr to raid deeper into the interior of Africa than any merchant before him, causing massive displacement and suffering across the region. The Janjaweed, and later the Rapid Support Forces, also caused massive displacement and suffering in Darfur and across Sudan. Both al-Zubayr’s forces and the Janjaweed were used as tools by those in power to carry out brutal campaigns while maintaining a level of plausible deniability. The al-Zubayr forces were, however, victims of the slave trade who became its enforcers, whereas the Janjaweed were free people who joined it to gain access to opportunities and later became paramilitary wing of the state.

The comparison between al-Zubayr and Hemedti is a powerful way to understand Sudan’s history. While they lived about 150 years apart, both followed a similar playbook to rise from the periphery of the country to the absolute gates of power in Khartoum. Both men are examples of the merchant-warlord model where a private business empire is used to fund a private army that eventually challenges the state itself. Both men share a similar outsider status. Both used their armies to force the capital to take them seriously. Al-Zubayr’s power was so great that Charles Gordon (former Governor-General of Sudan) eventually begged for his help during the Mahdist wars.^[120] Hemedti used his wealth to become the most powerful person in Sudan during the 2019 revolution that toppled al-Bashir. Also, the ghost of al-Zubayr still lives; streets were named for him in Khartoum, which some Sudanese consider distasteful: “As we know that the name Al-Zubair Pasha Rahma and Al-Zubair Pasha Street remains a great shame upon the Sudanese revolutionary heritage.”^[121]

A recurring theme in Sudanese history is a weak central government hiring a local strongman to do its dirty work: al-Zubayr was given the title of Pasha and made a Governor because the Egyptian Khedive’s regular army was too weak to control the deep south.^[122] Hemedti was called “Hamayti” (my protector) by President al-Bashir. His Janjaweed were legalized and given state funding to act as a shadow army.^[123]

Both men turned the spoils of war into a profitable export: al-Zubayr sold the people he conquered into the slave markets of Egypt and Arabia. Hemedti sent his Rapid Support Forces soldiers to fight in foreign wars in Yemen and Libya, paid for by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The central government creates a monster to protect itself, only for that monster to grow so large it tries to eat the state. Al-Zubayr became such a threat that the Egyptians had to trap him in Cairo for several years to stop him.^[124] With few exceptions, al-Zubayr “was prevented from leaving Egypt for twenty-five years. Zubayr was only allowed to leave Egypt twice: to fight as a soldier defending the Ottomans from Russia, and to be held under even closer watch by British authorities on Gibraltar out of fear that he would participate in the Mahdist revolt.”^[125] Hemedti grew so powerful that in April 2023 his partnership with the regular army collapsed into the catastrophic civil war that is currently destroying Sudan.

Hemedti’s gold empire is the modern evolution of al-Zubayr’s ivory trade. In 2017 he took control of the Jebel Amer gold mines after defeating Musa Hilal, who had controlled it while he was the Border Guard and Janjaweed militia commander. Several people lost their lives on both sides during Hemedti’s surprise attack, including his uncle, General Abdul Rahim Jumma Dagalo.^[126] Jebel Amer became the jewel of Hemedti’s gold business.

While al-Zubayr’s power was built on slaves, Hemedti’s power was built on gold. Gold is the single most important fuel for the ongoing civil war in Sudan. It provides the Rapid Support Forces with the hard currency needed to buy weapons, pay mercenaries, and sustain a parallel government in West Sudan. Just as al-Zubayr managed his empire through Zariba posts, Hemedti managed his through a conglomerate called Al-Junaid Multi Activities Co. Ltd. The company is controlled by Hemedti and his brothers. Most of the gold is not mined by big machines; it’s extracted by hundreds of thousands of impoverished artisanal miners using mercury and cyanide. The Rapid Support Forces taxes these miners, buys their gold at a low price, and controls the processing plants that extract the final metal from the waste.^[127] Gold was also used by the army to finance war. Indeed, “When war erupted in 2023, the gold trade shifted from an economic pillar to a war chest.”^[128]

The Rapid Support Forces use a clandestine network to export gold. Gold is typically smuggled by land into Chad, South Sudan, or Libya. From there, it is flown to the United Arab Emirates. Dubai is the primary destination. In Dubai, the gold is refined and sold on the global market. The proceeds are then used to purchase the Toyota technicals, drones, and ammunition that are shipped back to the Rapid Support Forces along the border.^[129] Recently, “the army destroyed two major supply positions for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) located on the borders with Chad and Libya.”^[130] Gold “became their main source of financial power, directly linked to their ability to finance their military activities and control the area.”^[131] The United Arab Emirates is reported to be “a steadfast backer” of the Rapid Support Forces,^[132] although it denies involvement.

As we have seen, al-Zubayr’s primary items were slaves and ivory and the financial hubs were Cairo and Jeddah. They used camel caravans, while Hemedti used Toyota technicals and cargo planes to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to export gold and import resources. The gold trade has sustained the war — Hemedti has been able to generate hundreds of millions of dollars independently of the Sudanese state. While the United States and European Union have sanctioned Al-Junaid and other Rapid Support Forces-linked firms, the network remains resilient because gold is easily smuggled and laundered through various middlemen.^[133] The rush for gold has left Darfur with poisoned water supplies and blood-stained soil,^[134] echoing the devastation al-Zubayr’s raids left behind a century ago. The stories of al-Zubayr and Hemedti show that in Sudan, whoever controls the periphery’s resources eventually brings the war to the capital.

The fall of El Fasher in October 2025 enabled the Rapid Support Forces to control almost all of Darfur, while the first fall of the city allowed al-Zubayr to add Darfur to the Bahr al-Ghazal region. The Rapid Support Forces then moved into much of Kordofan and both regions were rich in gold and other minerals. Hemedti’s gold empire remains firmly under Rapid Support Forces control, despite losing eastern Sudan. While Nyala city in South Darfur is the center of gravity for the Rapid Support Forces, Deim Zubayr was central for al-Zubayr. While al-Zubayr used Zaribas for control, the Rapid Support Forces used urban siege to surround and starve cities to gain control. El Fasher saw the brunt of all: siege, starvation, displacement, bombardment, dehumanization, massacres, and “acts of genocide by the Rapid Support Forces,” particularly against the Zaghawa and Fur. According to the United Nations independent international fact-finding mission report, “Taken together, the scale, severity, and cumulative impact of the acts by the Rapid Support Forces, assessed in light of patterns of targeting, conduct, and inferred intent, present indications pointing to genocide in and around El Fasher.”^[135]

Conclusion

The fall of El Fasher in October 2025 to the Rapid Support Forces was not the second time, as reported in some news outlets.^[136] Its first fall was to al-Zubayr in 1874 and its second was to the British in 1916. All three occasions saw the deployment of new military technology: rifles in 1874, aircraft in 1916, and drones in 2024–25. The last fall, however, was the most disastrous in terms of loss of life and property in the city. No battles took place inside the city during the 1874 and 1916 invasions, because the able-bodied fled and the city was captured without a fight. The last fall saw intensive fighting inside the city and the brutal massacre of civilians and displacements of enormous proportions.

While the fall of El Fasher is a massive loss to the army and its allied Juba 2020 signatories, it is probably even bigger for the defense militias and the non-Arab members of Darfur. For more than three decades they have been defending their Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit communities against the Janjaweed, and the fall of the city to the very militias they have been at war with is too difficult to fathom. Still, El Fasher remains the symbol of national unity, resistance, and historical heritage because it was one of the few cities of Sudan founded by Sudanese. It still holds “immense symbolic weight”^[137] as the historical capital of the Darfur sultanate and a symbol of resistance and resilience for all Sudanese.