Sudan’s RSF El Fasher Atrocities ‘A Stain on the Conscience of Humanity’ as Africa Grapples with Five Crises
DAKAR, Senegal — Africa confronts a cascade of overlapping crises across five regions as July opens, with the Rapid Support Forces’ atrocities in Sudan’s El Fasher drawing sharp condemnation from Amnesty International, South Africa’s xenophobic violence forces African leaders into emergency diplomacy, and the continent’s health and security architecture strains under simultaneous pressures.
North Africa: RSF Crimes Against Humanity in El Fasher
Amnesty International released a devastating report on July 2 confirming that the Rapid Support Forces committed crimes against humanity and acts of ethnic cleansing during their campaign to seize El Fasher, capital of North Darfur state. The report, titled “City Under Siege, Children Under Fire,” documents murders, torture, rape, sexual slavery, and forcible transfer of civilians between early 2024 and October 2025. “The war in Sudan is a war on civilians,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s Secretary General. “The world was warned of the horrors that civilians in El Fasher confronted as the RSF laid siege to the city.” More than 800,000 displaced people, many from El Fasher, are now sheltering in displacement camps in Tawila, with hundreds of thousands of children orphaned or repeatedly displaced. A concurrent cholera outbreak has killed 120 people, compounding the humanitarian catastrophe. Libya, meanwhile, remains fragmented as weapons flowing from the conflict feed instability across the Sahel.
West Africa: G5 Sahel Alliance Dissolves as Russia Tightens Grip
The G5 Sahel framework, once envisioned as a multinational force to combat jihadist insurgents across Africa’s semi-arid belt, has effectively collapsed. Mali and Niger have formally withdrawn, leaving Chad as the alliance’s sole remaining member. The collapse accelerates a security vacuum that jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are exploiting with increasing frequency. All three departing states have deepened their security ties with Russia, signing military cooperation agreements that have brought Russian advisors and private military contractors into the region. France, long the dominant external security partner, has been progressively sidelined as the juntas that seized power in Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou have embraced Moscow. Regional analysts warn that the security void will spill over into coastal West African states, including Ivory Coast and Senegal, both of which have experienced cross-border attacks in recent months.
Central Africa: Ebola Cross-Border Spread Prompts Regional Emergency
Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda are battling to contain an Ebola outbreak that has now spread across the DRC-Uganda border. The World Health Organization has activated its emergency protocols and is coordinating with both governments to distribute vaccine stockpiles and deploy contact-tracing teams. The outbreak, centered in DRC’s eastern provinces, has reported confirmed cases in Uganda for the first time in the current wave, triggering alarm at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “The window to contain this outbreak is narrowing,” a WHO official said in a briefing in Kinshasa. Regional governments are scrambling to strengthen border screening as thousands of people cross the frontier daily for trade and family visits. The DRC’s fragile health infrastructure, already under strain from years of conflict and underfunding, has struggled to maintain case isolation protocols in remote outbreak zones.
Southern Africa: Xenophobic Violence Forces Regional Diplomatic Crisis
South Africa is experiencing its most severe anti-migrant mobilization in years, with demonstrations spreading across Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town. Organizers of the protests, which have drawn thousands of participants, have set informal deadlines demanding that undocumented migrants leave the country. Reports from the demonstrations describe isolated clashes, including stone-throwing and looting, with security forces deployed to prevent further escalation. Ramaphosa dispatched envoys to Kinshasa, where he met with DRC President Félix Tshisekedi as part of an emergency diplomatic push to manage the fallout. The African Union has called for an extraordinary session of heads of state to address the surge in anti-migrant violence. Meanwhile, in Tanzania, security forces have been deployed to major cities following calls for protests that authorities fear could spiral into unrest.
East Africa: Kenya Gen Z Returns as Uganda Cracks Down on Media
In East Africa, two distinct but related pressures are testing democratic space. In Kenya, members of the Gen Z protest movement that swept the country in 2024 have returned to the streets on the second anniversary of the original demonstrations, marking the occasion with renewed calls for accountability and structural reform. Police deployed crowd-control measures as demonstrators gathered in Nairobi’s central business district, echoing the confrontations that defined the original movement. Uganda, meanwhile, has escalated its crackdown on independent media, with the government issuing orders to shut down the Nation Media Group’s broadcasting operations and restricting access to social media platforms. Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have condemned the closures as part of a systematic effort to silence critical coverage ahead of upcoming elections.
The convergence of war crimes, disease, diplomatic ruptures, and civic unrest across Africa’s five regions is placing extraordinary strain on the African Union’s institutions and member states. Emergency sessions of the Peace and Security Council are expected to continue as the continent grapples with crises that respect no borders.
