Long Reads: The Sudanese Catastrophe w/ Joshua Craze
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
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Summary
Last October, the war in Sudan took a new turn with the capture of El Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces. The city in western Sudan had been under siege by the RSF for more than two years before the Sudanese armed forces suddenly withdrew. After taking control of El Fasher, the RSF began to carry out a massacre of civilians. A UN fact-finding mission recently found that the crimes in El Fasher bore “hallmarks of genocide.”
The Sudanese catastrophe is all the more depressing because it comes after a brief moment of greater political openness and optimism after the ousting of a dictator in 2019.
Joshua Craze joins Long Reads to discuss the evolution of the conflict in Sudan and its likely future. Joshua has written many articles about the politics of Sudan and South Sudan for publications such as the New Statesman, the New York Review of Books, and Jacobin.
Read Joshua’s 2023 essay for Jacobin, “Only You Can Save Darfur”: https://jacobin.com/2023/07/only-you-can-save-darfur
And find other work on his personal website: https://www.joshuacraze.com/essays
Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies with music by Knxwledge.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, you're very welcome to Long Reeds, a Jacobin podcast where we're look in depth of political topics and thinkers. |
| 0:08.0 | My name is Daniel Finn. On the Features editor here at Jacobin and I'll be presenting the show. |
| 0:14.7 | Last October, the war in Sudan took a new turn with the capture of El Fasher by the rapid support forces. |
| 0:23.6 | The city in Western Sudan had been under siege by the RSF for more than two years before |
| 0:30.1 | the Sudanese armed forces suddenly withdrew. After taking control of El Fashir, the |
| 0:36.7 | RSF began to carry out a massacre of civilians. |
| 0:40.3 | Sky News broadcast this report, looking at the video evidence of the atrocities in November. |
| 0:47.3 | Of the masses of people who fled the city so far, more than 60,000 are still unaccounted for, with many |
| 0:55.9 | feared dead in the killing fields outside of al-Fashir. |
| 1:01.7 | The tens of thousands expected to flood the safe zone in Tawila are yet to arrive, with |
| 1:07.5 | survivors detailing the horror of their escape. Some are asked what their ethnicity is, and they leave them. |
| 1:16.6 | Others say their ethnicity, and they kill them. |
| 1:19.6 | They took all of our belongings as we left. |
| 1:22.6 | My wife and I got to Gernay, and we were held with 400 families. |
| 1:26.6 | They chose people and executed them in front of us. |
| 1:29.3 | They killed them in front of you and say, |
| 1:31.3 | bury your brother, and we just have to pour soil on them. |
| 1:34.3 | They were killing based on ethnicity. |
| 1:36.3 | They would come and ask us what our tribes are. |
| 1:39.3 | This brutality comes after the RSF, |
| 1:41.3 | encircled, starved and shelled al-Fashid for over 18 months |
| 1:45.5 | in their battle with the army for the last capital in Darfur under state control. |
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