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Following the break-out of Sudan’s civil war in April 2023, a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, rampaged across the country. Atrocities have been committed by both sides. They murdered, raped and abused thousands of civilians, and they filmed their crimes, posting videos online.

This film, reported by Heba Bitar, explores the experience of people in El Geneina and El Fasher, two cities in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. The RSF captured El Geneina early in the civil war, ransacking and looting the city. The UN estimates that as many as 15,000 were killed in the fighting. More than half the city’s population of 540,000 fled across the border to neighbouring Chad.

The conflict in Darfur has remained largely unreported by the world’s media. This ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Eye investigation reveals what happened when RSF forces captured El Geneina. It combines intimate access to the lives of people from El Geneina, now living in a vast refugee camp at Adre, in Chad, with analysis of RSF videos posted online. In addition, the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ team is the first documentary unit to have gained access to El Geneina itself, where they spoke to RSF fighters and the region’s new governor, challenging them on what happened in the city and their role in the conflict.

The film also reports on El Fasher, the last city still holding out against the RSF. Besieged for almost a year, hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped there. The ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ managed to get cameras to three people living in El Fasher. Exclusive footage filmed by the characters themselves reveals their daily battle to survive as RSF artillery shells pound the city.

El Fasher is described by the UN as ‘hell on Earth, where people could lose their lives on any day’. Those living there face an impending catastrophe, fearing that what happened to El Geneina may soon happen to them.

In January 2025, the then US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, concluded 'that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan.'