Over the last two months in Darfur, Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have committed horrifying atrocities in the city of el-Fasher. There, they have fired on and killed civilians already shattered by more than 500 days of siege; people already so starved they have been forced to eat animal feed.

People who have managed to escape – often walking to the town of Tawila, 60km (37 miles) southwest of el-Fasher – are deeply traumatised. The killings have been indiscriminate and ethnically targeted, according to testimonies of survivors that Médecins Sans Frontières  (Doctors Without Borders – MSF) teams treat in Tawila. Women report harrowing testimonies of rape. Children have arrived, terrified, in the arms of strangers, having been orphaned in el-Fasher.

People have been massacred, tortured, and summarily executed. Many remain stranded or unaccounted for as the violence that has swept through the city continues unchecked; several thousand people remain detained, held for ransom.

My Sudanese colleagues are treating patients as they await news of their relatives. Most of my colleagues in Tawila have family members, friends, or colleagues whom the RSF killed in el-Fasher.

While the scenes unfolding across Darfur are shocking and outrageous, we should not be surprised. For months, Sudanese people and many observers, including MSF, have been warning that this........

© Al Jazeera