Spare a moment for the Sudanese people, whose suffering does not get nearly enough attention.

El Fashir in western Darfur was home to more than a million people before the siege began 18 months ago. By the time the Arab rebels seized control last week from African tribesmen fighting alongside the Sudanese military, only about 250,000 starving civilians remained. After they subsisted on weeds and animal feed for a year and a half, thousands of emaciated survivors were massacred. One of the worst atrocities occurred at a hospital, where more than 460 patients and staff were murdered.

Fighters with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces posted videos of themselves gleefully executing civilians as they pleaded for their lives. One militia general boasted that he might have killed 2,000 people. Satellite images reveal clusters of bodies piled atop bloodstains so large they can be seen from space. Eyewitnesses who fled describe gunmen going house to house, shooting people, including women and children, in their homes.

The moral weight of this humanitarian tragedy is heavy. The United States should also take note because Sudan’s strategic location on the Red Sea affects energy flows and international trade. In the past, the country also has been a haven for terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, and a transit point for massive flows of illicit arms and gold.

This civil war, which flared up again in 2023, is a proxy war. The RSF’s main backer and weapons supplier is the United Arab Emirates. The Sudanese military, which has received weapons from Turkey and Iran, has also carpet-bombed neighbourhoods and allowed ethnic militias to kill innocents.

The Trump Administration brought representatives from the RSF and Sudanese military to Washington last Thursday and Friday to push for a three-month ceasefire. But State Department officials said no deal could be reached because both sides think they can still prevail. Nevertheless, Washington can do more to apply pressure via the UAE and Turkey.

The RSF commander known as Hemedti — General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo — has been treated like a head of state in some African capitals but sanctioned by the US. He acknowledged “abuses” by his forces and promised to hold any soldier “who committed a crime” accountable. The RSF later announced the arrest of some of its fighters, including the general who boasted of killing 2,000 people.

Don’t expect real accountability. Hemedti’s Arab militia has been responsible for abuses going back two decades. His paramilitary group was previously styled as the “janjaweed”, which terrorised Darfur in the early 2000s.

The slaughter at El Fashir has triggered righteous outrage, although not as much public notice as it deserves. James E. Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led a group of six senators last Thursday in calling on the administration to consider designating the RSF as a foreign terrorist organisation. That would be a good start.