Sudan’s ghost city: Al‑Junainah’s ethnic cleansing unveiled by satellites

Mass graves, burning neighbourhoods, and houses disappearing from the face of the earth. In Al-Junainah, as alarmed by human rights organizations, ethnic cleansing has occurred. New satellite images reveal a shocking picture of destruction in the "ghost town," where, in the shadow of other wars, one of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century has unfolded.

The war in Sudan has been ongoing since 15 April 2023. On that day, the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, who was once allied with the government's Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), attacked the capital, Khartoum.

Simultaneously, fighting began near Al-Junainah - a city located at the border with Chad, about 1,500 kilometres from Khartoum. In the following weeks, RSF soldiers, who originate from the Arab militia, conducted what Human Rights Watch, among others, assesses as an ethnic cleansing of the Masalit people - a non-Arab ethnic group whose members mainly reside in Al-Junainah and Chad.

Accounts of those who have witnessed the horror in Al-Junainah up close are appalling. They speak of bodies on the streets and snipers ready to shoot anyone who moves.

Khamis Abakar, the governor of the West Darfur province, declared on 13 June 2023 that genocide had taken place in Al-Junainah. According to him, the situation was so critical that even the military did not leave their bases to help civilians being killed at every turn. The following day, the governor was captured, tortured, and murdered by the RSF.

Several politicians, imams, and a humanitarian aid commissioner were also killed in the city. - They're just shooting every place. If you go outside you'll be killed. You can't move, even 200 or 300 metres - Mohammed Ibrahim, whose name was changed, a resident of Al-Junainah, told the BBC.

In the following weeks, mass graves were found in the city. Zahwi Idriss, one of the residents who spoke to CNN, stated that Al-Junainah had become a "ghost town". -Bodies littered the street from Geneina Teaching Hospital all the way to the south of the city - he said.

Some residents fled to Adré - a town in Chad about 35 kilometres from Al-Junainah. However, many did not succeed. The RSF controlled the A5 road leading to Chad. Sultan Saad Bahreldin, the leader of the Masalit, said in June 2023 in an interview with Al Hadath television that "on the road between Al-Junainah and Adré, there are countless bodies; no one can count them".

Witnesses, with whom Reuters spoke, mentioned burning people alive, mass rapes of women, and the killing of children.

It is estimated that about 15,000 people could have died in Al-Junainah.

Access to information about what happened and is happening in Sudan is limited. There are no Western journalists on the ground, and Sudanese journalists work under harsh conditions, constantly risking their lives. During the war, journalists have already been murdered, and many newspapers have suspended their activities. Reporting on the conflict is further hampered by almost complete internet blackouts, which occurred in February and March of this year.

Verbal accounts from refugees who have fled to other countries are often the only source of information about what happened, where, and when. Inevitably, these are often stories about individuals and families.

New satellite images shared by Google show the full scale of the tragedy in Al-Junainah. Entire neighbourhoods, where hundreds of huts and houses stood at the beginning of April 2023, have been turned to dust.

The most significant destruction is visible in the western part of the city. 25 April 2023 was critical. That is when the RSF forces reportedly began attacking neighbourhoods inhabited by the Masalit. NASA images confirm that numerous fires occurred in the city that day. They happened along the A5 road, throughout more than 2.5 kilometres. The fire broke out, among other places, in the Abu Zar camp for internally displaced persons.

Less than a month later, on 24 May, areas adjacent to this region and the University of Al-Junainah were also burning. New satellite images, taken on 12 April, show that almost all regional buildings have been destroyed.

The destruction extends further south of the A5 road - up to the Kaja River flowing through the city.

On the other side of the A5 road, about 2 kilometres from the university gate, there was a hospital - it, too, was destroyed, along with almost everything around it.

Further north, one can see a ghost neighbourhood. As recently as 19 April 2023, dozens of houses stood in the Ghabat Al-Neem neighbourhood. However, the images from 17 March 2024 show that this area has been levelled. In many places, there is not even a trace of walls. Here and there, only rubble can be seen. The neighbourhood was likely destroyed using bulldozers. The destruction is meant to ensure that no one who fled will ever be able to return to these areas.

A similar fate - the "erasure" of residential areas using bulldozers - may soon befall or has already befallen other structures that have already been partially destroyed. Many houses no longer have roofs, suggesting they, too, may be prepared for demolition.

This includes buildings visible in the images below in the eastern part of the city. According to NASA images, a fire broke out there on 17 May 2023 - it, too, like fires in other parts of the town, was a result of ongoing battles.

At the end of 2023, the European Union warned of "another genocide" in Darfur. "Another" because, between 2003 and 2008, around 300,000 people were killed in the region, mainly from the Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa ethnic groups.

The current situation in Al-Junainah and throughout Sudan is catastrophic. At least half the population - about 15.5 million people - needs humanitarian aid. Sudan has the world's most significant number of internally displaced people - over 3.7 million. For comparison, according to the "Global Report on Internal Displacement" published by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) at the beginning of May this year - the number of internally displaced people in Palestine is over 2.1 million, and in Ukraine - 440,000

In addition, about 1.2 million people have fled Sudan to other countries.

On Friday, 24 May, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, stated in an interview with the BBC that another genocide has already occurred or may occur in the city of Al-Fashir. It is about 400 kilometres east of Al-Junainah and is the last major city in the Darfur region still controlled by the Sudanese military.

Nderitu emphasized that the situation in Sudan resembles what happened in Rwanda in 1994. At that time, the Tutsi people were subjected to genocide by the Hutu. Over about one hundred days, an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people were killed.