Africa File, April 17, 2025: RSF War Crimes and Possible Genocide; al Shabaab Retaking Central Somalia; M23 Challenges; Algeria-Mali Spat

Africa File, April 17, 2025: RSF War Crimes and Possible Genocide; al Shabaab Retaking Central Somalia; M23 Challenges; Algeria-Mali Spat

Authors: Liam Karr, Kathryn Tyson, Yale Ford

Data Cutoff: April 17, 2025, at 10 a.m.

The Critical Threats Project’s Africa File provides regular analysis and assessments of major developments regarding state and nonstate actors’ activities in Africa that undermine regional stability and threaten US personnel and interests.

Key Takeaways:

• Sudan. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has committed numerous war crimes as the group has intensified its efforts to consolidate control over western Sudan since losing Khartoum in March 2025. The RSF recently attacked the Zamzam refugee camp, where it likely committed war crimes, near the North Darfur state capital, al Fasher. These actions are possibly constituent acts of ethnic cleansing or even genocide as defined under international law. An RSF attack on al Fasher would likely lead to further acts of ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide.
• Somalia. Al Shabaab captured two key areas in central Somalia that could enable the group to reestablish support zones there and connect them to its center of gravity in southern Somalia. This would undo the US-backed Somali counterterrorism offensive in 2022 and allow al Shabaab to pressure the remaining federal government-controlled areas in central Somalia. This comes as al Shabaab opened a second front south of Mogadishu in March 2025.
• Democratic Republic of the Congo. Pro-Congolese Wazalendo fighters attacked M23 positions in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, likely to undermine the group as a governing force and weaken its negotiating position with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The attacks highlight M23’s capacity and supply issues, which limit its ability to consolidate control in some areas. This coincides with the M23’s continued struggles to effectively implement its political agenda in the eastern DRC.
• Sahel. The latest diplomatic tensions between Algeria and Mali could strain the Algerian relationship with Niger and Russia. These tensions will test the cohesion of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), as Niger is in a difficult position between Algeria and the AES. Algeria has separately increased cooperation with the West in recent years, likely in response to destabilizing Russian activity around Algeria.

Assessments:

Sudan

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has intensified their offensive against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in western Sudan since losing Khartoum in March in order to consolidate control there and establish a de-facto partition. The RSF attacked the Zamzam Refugee Camp—nine miles south of the North Darfur state capital al Fasher—on April 9 and captured the camp after days of fighting on April 13.[1] The last SAF military stronghold in the Darfur region is in al Fasher, and the RSF has besieged the state capital since April 2024.[2] The RSF has staged 400 vehicles at the Zamzam camp and is reportedly mobilizing more forces near al Fasher.[3]

The RSF has escalated an offensive to capture al Fasher since it lost Khartoum—the Sudanese capital—in March 2025. The RSF has captured other key SAF positions in Darfur to consolidate control over the lines of communication around al Fasher. The RSF attacked over 50 villages in Dar as Salam locality—around 29 miles south of al Fasher—as it tightened its siege on Zamzam Camp in March.[4] The RSF captured areas north of al Fasher, including the operationally significant town of al Mahla, in late March.[5] Several SAF-aligned armed groups were based in al Mahla.[6] The RSF on April 10 captured Umm Kadada, which is approximately 89 miles east of al Fasher along a key east-west highway and hosts an SAF infantry brigade that belongs to the same division stationed in al Fasher.[7]

Figure 1. Control of Terrain in Sudan’s Civil War

Source: Kathryn Tyson; Thomas van Linge.

The RSF has publicized its governance efforts in western Sudan to portray itself as a legitimate political power. The RSF published a video on March 26 of RSF fighters and tribal leaders “vowing to uphold security” to civilians in al Mahla in order to highlight the RSF as a legitimate protection force.[8] The RSF similarly released videos of RSF fighters “ensuring the security and protection” of civilians in Zamzam camp on April 14.[9]

The RSF has sought to consolidate control of western Sudan with its military campaign and its Darfur-based parallel government after losing Khartoum in March in order to effectively partition Sudan. The SAF launched an offensive to retake the divided capital in October and successfully cleared the RSF from central Khartoum in March. The development is a strategic setback to the RSF and its efforts to control the capital and present itself as a legitimate national power with more legitimacy than its historical reputation as the Janjaweed, the Darfur-based rebel groups that the RSF grew out of. The RSF officially launched a parallel government on April 16 after the SAF announced plans for a new SAF-led government in February 2025.[10] The RSF seeks to gain international support and legitimacy through the parallel government in order to mitigate the blow to its legitimacy that the loss of Khartoum represents.[11]

Figure 2. Area of SAF and RSF Operations in Darfur

Source: Kathryn Tyson; Thomas van Linge.

The RSF likely committed war crimes in its attack on the Zamzam camp. These actions are possibly constituent acts of ethnic cleansing or even genocide as defined under international law. The RSF killed over 300 civilians and displaced over 400,000 civilians in its offensive on the Zamzam camp and systematically destroyed homes, markets, and health care facilities.[12] The RSF deliberately executed ten staff members, including doctors and drivers, from the last organization providing critical services at the Zamzam camp.[13] The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab reported on April 14 that civilians around the Zamzam camp and al Fasher were “at imminent risk of torture, conflict-related sexual violence, and massacre.”[14] The RSF siege of al Fasher and deliberate attacks on humanitarian health workers had already imposed famine conditions on the Zamzam camp.[15]

The RSF’s actions around the Zamzam camp are possibly constituent acts of ethnic cleansing or even genocide as defined under international law. The Zamzam camp predominantly hosted Zaghawa and other non-Arab civilians that the Janjaweed displaced in the early 2000s Darfur genocide.[16] A UN Commission of Experts previously defined ethnic cleansing in the context of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia as “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area” and “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”[17] Acts of ethnic cleansing may amount to constituent acts of genocide, which are defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”[18] The full scope of the attack around the Zamzam camp is unknown because the RSF has imposed a communications blackout.[19]

The RSF has likely committed multiple other war crimes around the Zamzam camp. The RSF likely violated international humanitarian law by deliberately attacking medical facilities, imposing famine conditions on the camp through its siege and targeting of humanitarian personnel, and executing unarmed people.[20] The brazen RSF attack on the camp likely violates the international legal principle of proportionality, regardless of the RSF’s claims that the SAF used the refugees in camp as human shields. Proportionality is a fundamental principle of humanitarian law that dictates that belligerent parties must take measures to minimize the cost to civilians and that civilian harm must not be disproportionate to the expected military advantage of conducting an attack or operation.[21] The SAF and SAF-aligned militias have disputed the RSF claims.

Figure 3. Instances of RSF Ethnically-Motivated Violence During the Sudanese Civil War

Source: Kathryn Tyson.

The attacks in al Fasher follow a pattern of the RSF abusing civilians throughout the civil war in ways that have been consistent with ethnically motivated violence, war crimes, and possible acts of genocide. The RSF conducted a “systematic” mass ethnic cleansing campaign against the Massalit ethnic group in al Geneina, West Darfur state, from April to November 2023, killing thousands, with upper estimates from the United Nations reaching 15,000 killed.[22] The RSF killed at least 300 civilians and displaced over 135,000 more between late October and early November 2024 in ethnically motivated attacks in Gezira state, central Sudan, after the SAF captured the Gezira state capital city of Wad Madani.[23] United Nations’ agencies have reported that both sides in Sudan, but primarily the RSF, has systematically used “rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war.”[24] Amn...
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