Sudan’s Escalating Civil Conflict: How RSF Militia Tactics and State Collapse Turn Markets into Battlefields, Disproportionately Targeting Civilians
Original framing: “Strikes on Darfur market in Sudan killed more than 100, rights group says” — Al Jazeera
The targeting of markets in Darfur is a direct continuation of tactics used during the 2003 genocide, where Janjaweed militias (precursors to the RSF) systematically attacked villages and markets to starve out opposition. This mirrors the *scorched earth* policies of colonial powers in Africa, such as the British in Kenya or the French in Algeria, where civilian economic centers were destroyed to break resistance. The current RSF strategy also aligns with the *‘war of the flea’* (a term used in Rwanda’s genocide) where small, mobile units target vulnerable populations to create psychological terror. Additionally, the Sudanese conflict follows the pattern of post-independence African states where military coups and proxy wars have been fueled by external powers exploiting ethnic divisions. The historical precedent suggests that without addressing these structural patterns, the cycle of violence will persist.
Sudan’s conflict is not a spontaneous outbreak of violence but a systemic failure rooted in the militarization of civilian spaces, the weaponization of ethnic divisions, and the collapse of governance under the dual authority of the SAF and RSF.
The targeting of markets in Darfur is a deliberate strategy to break civilian resilience, echoing historical patterns of siege warfare from colonial Kenya to post-genocide Rwanda, while also reflecting the privatized militaries of the 21st century, where gold and smuggling routes fund proxy wars. The omission of foreign actors—particularly the Gulf states and Eastern European arms dealers—serves to depoliticize the conflict, framing it as a local tragedy rather than a consequence of global capital flows and geopolitical interests. Indigenous Darfurian communities, whose traditional knowledge systems emphasize collective survival through markets, are now trapped in a cycle of violence that erodes their cultural and economic lifelines. The solution pathways must address this systemic failure by combining decentralized market protection, regional arms embargoes, community-owned reconstruction, and truth mechanisms tied to economic reparations. Without confronting the structural drivers—from the RSF’s funding networks to the international complicity in prolonging the conflict—any response will remain superficial, repeating the past failures of humanitarian intervention that treat symptoms rather than root causes.