Satellite Imagery Exposes Deliberate Starvation Campaign in Sudan's Darfur Region
Experts analyzing sensor and satellite data have uncovered what they describe as a calculated "starvation strategy" implemented by Sudan's Rapid Support Forces against farming communities in Darfur. The evidence reveals targeted attacks designed to destroy local food systems, with legal scholars now arguing these actions constitute war crimes under international law.
The Systematic Destruction of Darfur's Breadbasket
Between March and June 2024, researchers at Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab identified 41 farming communities that suffered repeated attacks in the Darfur region. The village of Ammar Jadid, once a productive agricultural center that fed both its residents and the nearby city of El Fasher, now stands blackened and abandoned after seven separate assaults during this period.
"The fields surrounding Ammar Jadid once fed an entire region," explains Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab. "Then militiamen came and burned everything down. They ripped out the breadbasket of El Fasher as an intentional strategy to starve the city."
Satellite imagery shows a 2,040% increase in fires during the studied period, with a quarter of villages attacked multiple times. After these assaults, 68% of the communities show no signs of normal life, their farmland dried up and abandoned.
Legal Experts Identify War Crime Patterns
Tom Dannenbaum, a professor at Stanford Law School and co-author of a new legal analysis, states that the evidence points clearly to war crimes. "People were at the brink of starvation and objects indispensable to their survival were being destroyed," he explains. "It was not merely the fact the villages had been attacked but the targeted destruction of livestock enclosures and farming infrastructure that suggested a deliberate attempt to prevent food production."
The research documents how attacks escalated just before the siege of El Fasher began in April 2024, suggesting a coordinated plan to cut the city off from its food sources. During the subsequent 18-month siege, the RSF prevented food, water, and medicine from entering the city while constructing a 19-mile earthen berm to trap civilians inside.
From Janjaweed to RSF: A Pattern of Violence Continues
The violence traces back to the 2000s when the Janjaweed militia, drawn from Arab pastoralist communities, conducted government-backed attacks that killed an estimated 300,000 people in Darfur. The Rapid Support Forces, the successor to the Janjaweed, have continued this pattern while growing powerful enough to wage war against the Sudanese army.
Yasser Abdul Latif, a teacher from the village of Jughmar near Ammar Jadid, describes the escalation: "We heard gunshots and everyone started running. I saw the fighters kill two people—one who tried to defend his house and another running to find his family." After initial attacks, the RSF returned at night while villagers were burying their dead, forcing them to flee to displacement camps.
International Investigations and Future Implications
The International Criminal Court has been investigating genocide in Darfur since the 2000s and recently called for evidence related to RSF violence, including the June 2023 takeover of El Geneina that killed tens of thousands. A UN human rights council report last month stated that the RSF's attack on El Fasher bore the "hallmarks of genocide," specifically targeting non-Arab communities including the Zaghawa and Fur.
Oona Hathaway, a Yale Law School professor who co-authored the legal analysis, believes the satellite evidence represents a breakthrough. "The report provides a unique level of fine-grained, over-time analysis documenting exactly what was attacked," she says. "It's evidence of extraordinary cruelty and the real horrors people have been facing—of a quality that could be submitted in court for criminal prosecution."
The Expanding Hunger Crisis Across Sudan
The starvation strategy has now expanded beyond Darfur. In Kordofan region, the RSF has employed similar siege tactics around Kadugli, a city now declared to be suffering famine where food prices have increased by 1,000%. Despite the Sudanese army claiming to have broken the siege in February, a drone strike recently killed four people in an aid convoy attempting to reach the city.
Hunger is also growing in Blue Nile state, where RSF attacks have prevented farmers from accessing their land, leaving crops unharvested. According to campaign group Avaaz, flour prices rose 43% in January alone in this region.
Raymond warns that without accountability, the same fate could befall other communities. "This report is quantitative proof of RSF's intent to prevent those they perceive as enemies from feeding themselves," he states. "What happened here can happen again in Sudan and potentially in other conflict zones where these techniques could be applied."
Legal experts note that the remote sensing technologies used in this investigation could also be applied to examine potential war crimes in Gaza, Ethiopia, and other conflict areas, creating new possibilities for documenting starvation as a method of warfare.
