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RSF has burnt and buried tens of thousands of corpses in El Fasher, says Yale report

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Original article by Pavan Kulkarni republished from peoples dispatch under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Analyzing satellite images showing “clusters of objects consistent with human remains”, “reddish discoloration consistent with blood”, charred earth and dug up ground consistent with the burning and burial of corpses, Yale HRL assesses that RSF has killed and disposed of people “likely in the tens of thousands”.

Evidence of burning and new presence of white objects collected by satellite imagery in early November. Photo: Yale Humanitarian Research Lab

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have burnt and buried bodies, likely in the tens of thousands, after massacring civilians while overrunning El Fasher, the last city in Sudan’s western region of Darfur that held out against the paramilitary until late October.

The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) said in a report published on December 16 that it “assesses to high confidence” that the RSF “engaged in widespread and systematic mass killing” after entering the besieged and starved city on October 26.

Read More: El Fasher’s last stand: “The city has fallen, but its dignity has not” 

Satellite images collected over the next few days, until November 1, showed at least 150 “clusters of objects consistent with human remains”. By November 28, 108 of these 150 clusters had changed in size, growing and shrinking over time, while 57 were no longer visible. 

“Disturbed earth”, meaning dug up ground, began to appear “at or in close proximity to locations where clusters” that shrunk or disappeared “were identified.” Several “clusters” were also burnt, visible as charred earth in later satellite images.  

The ground around 33 of the 108 clusters identified had a “reddish discoloration consistent with blood or other bodily fluids”, shed on a scale large enough to be visible from space.

Read More: A bloodbath visible from space: RSF’s massacres in Sudan’s El Fasher 

In the images, 52 body piles were observed in the neighborhood of Daraja Oula, where the remaining civilians in the city had sheltered before being executed by the RSF on a door-to-door killing spree. 

Another 83 clusters were seen outside El Fasher, consistent with footage shared on social media by the RSF troops, showing themselves chasing down the fleeing civilians, capturing and executing them. Indications consistent with “mass killings” were also observed at the sites used by the RSF for detention.  

The “RSF subsequently engaged in a systematic multi-week campaign to destroy evidence of its mass killings through burial, burning, and removal of human remains on a mass scale,” states the report, adding, “This pattern of body disposal and destruction is ongoing.” 

There are no reliable estimates of the death toll in the absence of access to the area. “Over 260,000 civilians, including 130,000 children, have been trapped” in El Fasher “under siege for more than 16 months, cut off from food, water, and healthcare,” UNICEF had reported on October 23, three days before the RSF entered the city after breaching its defenses. 

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) had recorded at least 106,387 people displaced by late-November. The remaining civilians, over 150,000 of them, are unaccounted. How many of them have survived is not known, but “HRL assesses that … RSF has systematically killed and disposed of a number of objects consistent with human remains, likely in the tens of thousands.”

In its aftermath, the city appears depopulated. The “pattern of civilian life in El-Fasher seems to have all but ended following RSF’s total control of El-Fasher,” the report added. “The end of civilian pattern of life is evidenced by abnormal vegetation growth in markets, no visible civilian activity at water points, absence of crowds of people in the street, and no evidence of civilian transport.”

Read More: Sudan’s RSF expands control eastward after taking over Darfur

Original article by Pavan Kulkarni republished from peoples dispatch under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingRSF has burnt and buried tens of thousands of corpses in El Fasher, says Yale report

EU says Sudan has become ‘living nightmare,’ urges immediate ceasefire

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

People displaced from El Fasher and other conflict-affected areas are settled in the newly established El-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, in Sudan’s Northern State, on November 09, 2025. [Stringer – Anadolu Agency]

The EU on Tuesday warned that Sudan is facing a “catastrophic” humanitarian crisis, urging all parties to grant unhindered humanitarian access and resume negotiations for an immediate ceasefire, Anadolu reports.

Addressing the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg, the EU commissioner for equality and acting commissioner for crisis management, Hadja Lahbib, said hunger, malnutrition, and disease are rapidly spreading across the country, while international humanitarian law is being violated.

Lahbib described the situation in Darfur and Kordofan as “particularly shocking,” recalling last month’s “horrific attacks” against civilians by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during their capture of El-Fasher and Bara.

“Thousands of civilians in El-Fasher have been killed on ethnic grounds, in house-to-house raids, mass detentions. People (are) unable to leave the city,” she said.

The commissioner noted that the RSF continues to block humanitarian assistance, further shrinking the humanitarian space in Sudan.

READ: Sudanese Army repels new RSF attack on Babanusa

Since the conflict erupted in April 2023, more than 120 aid workers have been killed, making Sudan “one of the deadliest places in the world” for humanitarian staff.

Lahbib stressed that 21 million people face acute food insecurity, according to the latest assessment by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, and warned that bureaucratic hurdles continue to obstruct aid operations.

She recalled that EU foreign ministers last week adopted sanctions against the RSF’s second-in-command, Abdelrahim Dagalo, for human rights violations and reiterated the bloc’s call for full accountability for atrocities committed in the country.

Lahbib also stressed the need for diplomatic engagement with regional actors to apply pressure on the warring sides.

“Considering the work of Kuwait, UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the US, we have to take into account all interests and regional actors, including Türkiye,” she noted.

“Sudan has become a living nightmare for its people and a humanitarian catastrophe,” she said, adding that supporting humanitarian efforts in the country remains a priority for the European Commission.

Separately​​​​​​​, the EU and the African Union condemned the atrocities committed by the RSF following their capture of the city of El-Fasher, and urged an immediate end to the conflict in Sudan.

Since April 2023, the Sudanese army and the RSF have been locked in a war that regional and international mediations have failed to end. The conflict has killed thousands of people and displaced millions of others.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Continue ReadingEU says Sudan has become ‘living nightmare,’ urges immediate ceasefire

Reporters Without Borders Decries ‘Wave of Violence’ Against Journalists at LA Protests

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Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Police take security measures during demonstration as the Trump administration continues its immigration raids in Los Angeles, California, United States on June 8, 2025. Hundreds of protesters are seen demanding an immediate halt to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at workplaces in America’s second largest city. (Photo: Taurat Hossain/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“These protests are a matter of huge public interest and the public has a right to know exactly what’s going on,” said the executive director of RSF USA.

The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, also known as RSF, on Monday condemned recorded attacks carried out largely by law enforcement, but also by protestors, against journalists reporting on protests that took place in Los Angeles this past weekend.

Protests began on Friday to oppose federal immigration raids on workplaces.

In a statement, RSF said that it has verified at least 27 recorded incidents of violence against journalists since June 6 with the help of its local partner, the Los Angeles Press Club. Twenty four of those incidents were carried out by law enforcement, and three were carried out by individual protestors, according to the statement.

“The wave of violence against journalists on the streets of Los Angeles this weekend is unacceptable. These protests are a matter of huge public interest and the public has a right to know exactly what’s going on. The only way that can happen is if journalists are allowed to do their jobs freely,” said Clayton Weimers, the executive director of RSF USA.

“This is inherently dangerous work, but it’s made more dangerous by authorities who are unable or unwilling to distinguish press from protestors, and by private actors who attack members of the media,” Weimers continued. “Authorities in LA must do more to ensure press freedom is respected during these protests.”

In one incident caught on camera, police hit reporter Lauren Tomasi, a U.S. correspondent for CNN-affiliate Nine News in Australia, with a rubber bullet while she was reporting live on on air.

Several media workers reported being hit with “less-than-lethal munitions,” such as pepper balls, rubber bullets, and tear gas canisters, by police, according to RSF.

According to the group, U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to call in National Guard troops in response to protests “contributed to the violence against journalists already being perpetrated by law enforcement.” On Saturday, Trump ordered that 2,000 National Guard members be called up to help quell the anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests, over the objections of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. As of Sunday, some 300 federal troops were on the ground in Los Angeles, according to The Associated Press.

Alleged incidents of violence carried out by protestors against media workers include an episode, caught on video, of a KTTV Fox 11 TV crew being heckled and forced to leave a protest.

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue ReadingReporters Without Borders Decries ‘Wave of Violence’ Against Journalists at LA Protests

‘Democracy Is on Life Support’: Trump Orders Defunding of NPR and PBS

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Demonstrators urge Congress to protect funding for NPR and PBS in Washington, D.C. on March 26, 2025. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

“All of us who care about an independent press, an informed populace, a responsive government, and a thriving democracy have a stake in the outcome of this fight,” said one press freedom advocate.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order calling for an end to taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS, an escalation of his dangerous assault on public media that could shutter hundreds of local stations across the country.

The president’s order, which he signed behind closed doors, echoes a section of Project 2025, a far-right agenda that called for stripping public funding from NPR, PBS, and other broadcasters on the grounds that they “do not even bother to run programming that would attract conservatives.”

Trump’s order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)—a private nonprofit corporation created and funded by Congress—to “cease direct funding to NPR and PBS, consistent with my administration’s policy to ensure that federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage.”

The executive order, which is expected to face legal challenges, also directs all federal agencies to “identify and terminate, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS.”

Craig Aaron, co-CEO of the advocacy group Free Press, said in a statement Friday that “Trump’s attack on public media shows why our democracy is on life support.”

“After years of attacking journalists and lying about their work, it’s no surprise that Trump and his minions are trying to silence and shutter any newsroom that dares to ask him questions or show the devastating impact of his policies on local communities,” said Aaron. “Yet in many of those communities, the local public-media station is the only source of independent reporting. Trump, of course, prefers fawning propaganda—which too many commercial TV and radio broadcasters are willing to provide in exchange for regulatory favors, or to stay off the president’s target list.”

“All of us who care about an independent press, an informed populace, a responsive government, and a thriving democracy have a stake in the outcome of this fight,” he added. “If we unite to defend public media—and I believe we can and will prevail—then we might just save our democracy, too.”

It’s not just NPR and PBS, they’re coming to fuck with your local public radio.www.whitehouse.gov/presidential…

— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce.com) 2025-05-02T04:50:39.444Z

Trump’s move was expected, and it came in the wake of reports that the administration intends to ask Congress to rescind previously approved funding for CPB, which is already engaged in a court fight with the president over his attempt to fire several of the organization’s board members. The Associated Pressreported Thursday that the rescission request “has not yet been sent to Capitol Hill.”

According to the organizations’ estimates, federal funding accounts for roughly 1% of NPR‘s annual budget and 15% of PBS‘s yearly revenue.

In a letter to congressional leaders earlier this week, a coalition of civil society groups led by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) warned that, if enacted, Trump’s proposed funding cuts for public broadcasting “will result in the shutdown of dozens, if not hundreds, of local, independent radio and television stations serving Americans in every corner of the country.”

“As it stands, public media journalists are often the only reporters attending a school board meeting, or a local zoning hearing, or at the scene of a crime,” the groups wrote. “They are the journalists most likely to hold local public officials accountable and expose
corruption. Faraway digital media outlets will not replicate this coverage, and the American public will lose out.”

Trump’s attack on public broadcasters is part of his administration’s broader effort to undermine journalism in the United States and around the world.

RSF said in a report published Friday that Trump’s “early moves in his second mandate to politicize the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), ban The Associated Press from the White House, or dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, for example, have jeopardized the country’s news outlets and indicate that he intends to follow through on his threats, setting up a potential crisis for American journalism.”

“After a century of gradual expansion of press rights in the United States,” the group said, “the country is experiencing its first significant and prolonged decline in press freedom in modern history, and Donald Trump’s return to the presidency is greatly exacerbating the situation.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue Reading‘Democracy Is on Life Support’: Trump Orders Defunding of NPR and PBS

Reporters Without Borders Sounds Alarm Over Trump Effort to ‘Bring the Press Into Line’

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Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. President Donald Trump takes a question from a reporter at the White House in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 2025.  (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

RSF says Trump’s moves “have jeopardized the country’s news outlets and indicate that he intends to follow through on his threats, setting up a potential crisis for American journalism.”

Press freedom in the United States has fallen to its lowest level since Reporters Without Borders began publishing its annual ranking more than 20 years ago, with President Donald Trump’s return to power “greatly exacerbating the situation,” RSF said Friday.

The U.S. fell from 55th to 57th place on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index, marking the second straight year that the situation in the country which lists freedom of the press first in its Bill of Rights has been classified as “problematic.” The report comes ahead of World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

The U.S. has been trending downward on RSF’s index since 2013, when it ranked 32nd in global press freedom. A decade later, it had fallen to 45th place before plunging to 55th place last year amid Trump’s attacks on the media.

“Trump was elected to a second term after a campaign in which he denigrated the press on a daily basis and made explicit threats to weaponize the federal government against the media,” the report states.

Press freedom in the United States has hit a record low, according to the latest World Press Freedom Index published annually by Reporters Without Borders.

— Axios (@axios.com) 2025-05-02T04:03:47.520Z

“His early moves in his second mandate to politicize the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), ban The Associated Press from the White House, or dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, for example, have jeopardized the country’s news outlets and indicate that he intends to follow through on his threats, setting up a potential crisis for American journalism,” the publication continues, accusing Trump of using “false economic pretexts” to “bring the press into line.”

“The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides broad protections for the press. However, no meaningful press freedom legislation has been passed at the national level in recent years despite the country’s consistent slide on the Press Freedom Index,” the report notes. “The PRESS Act, a federal shield law, failed to pass for a second successive time in 2024. More than a dozen states and communities have proposed or enacted laws to limit journalists’ access to public spaces, including barring them from legislative meetings and preventing them from recording the police.”

RSF continued:

Economic constraints have a considerable impact on journalists. Roughly one-third of the American newspapers operating in 2005 have now shuttered. While some public media outlets, and radio stations in particular, have been able to offset this decline thanks to online subscription models, others have found ways to sustain growth through individual donations. Massive waves of layoffs swept the U.S. media throughout 2023 and 2024 and have continued into 2025, affecting both local newsrooms and major legacy outlets. Many parts of the country are now considered news deserts, with the disappearance of local news outlets reaching crisis levels. Since 2022, more than 8,000 journalists have been laid off in the U.S.

Furthermore, “more Americans have no trust in the media than trust it a fair amount. Online harassment, particularly towards women and minorities, is also a serious issue for journalists and can impact their quality of life and safety.”

“Politicians’ open disdain for the media has trickled down to the public,” RSF added. “Journalists reporting on the ground can face harassment, intimidation, and assault while working. When covering demonstrations, journalists are sometimes attacked and physically assaulted by protestors or wrongfully arrested by police. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, there were 49 journalist arrests in 2024 compared to only 15 in 2023. The last journalist to be killed in the course of his work was Dylan Lyons in February of 2023.”

RSF paints a grim picture for journalism around the world.

“The conditions for practicing journalism are bad in half of the world’s countries,” as “less than 1% of the world’s population lives in a country where press freedom is fully guaranteed,” the report states.

Noting that economic self-sufficiency is critical to a free press, RSF editorial director Anne Bocandé said in a statement that “guaranteeing freedom, independence,s and plurality in today’s media landscape requires stable and transparent financial conditions.”

“Without economic independence, there can be no free press,” Bocandé continued. “When news media are financially strained, they are drawn into a race to attract audiences at the expense of quality reporting, and can fall prey to the oligarchs and public authorities who seek to exploit them. When journalists are impoverished, they no longer have the means to resist the enemies of the press—those who champion disinformation and propaganda.”

“The media economy must urgently be restored to a state that is conducive to journalism and ensures the production of reliable information, which is inherently costly,” she added. “Solutions exist and must be deployed on a large scale. The media’s financial independence is a necessary condition for ensuring free, trustworthy information that serves the public interest.”

RSF’s new rankings come days after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ended a Biden administration policy that strictly limited the Justice Department’s authority to seize journalists’ records and compel them to testify in leak investigations.

On Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published a report on Trump’s first 100 days in office, which the group said were “marked by a flurry of executive actions that have created a chilling effect and have the potential to curtail media freedoms.”

"It is disturbing that, on the eve of #WorldPressFreedomDay, the Trump administration has dealt major blows to journalists and the public they serve." — Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ's U.S., Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator

— Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom.bsky.social) 2025-05-02T16:09:12.602Z

“From denying access to upending respect for the independence of a free press to vilifying news organizations to threatening reprisals, this administration has begun to exert its power to punish or reward based on coverage,” CPJ said. “Whether in the states or on the streets, this behavior is setting a new standard for how the public can treat journalists.”

“The uncertainty and fear resulting from these actions have caused requests for safety advice to increase as journalists and newsrooms aim to prepare for what might be next,” the group added. “These moves represent a notable escalation from the first Trump administration, which also pursued banning and deriding elements of the press. After nearly a decade of repeating insults and falsehoods, and filing lawsuits, Trump has normalized disdain for media to an alarming degree.”

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
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Continue ReadingReporters Without Borders Sounds Alarm Over Trump Effort to ‘Bring the Press Into Line’