With famine knocking at the door of Sudan, RSF rebels are said to be using hunger as a war weapon.
The fighting has seen over 12,000 people killed and displaced about 8.3 million.
According to the United Nations, 5 
people in Sudan face the risk of “catastrophic” famine, while more than 18 million face acute hunger.
The RSF regularly uses food and starvation as tools to control civilians.
To force the men and boys of Gezira State to join the fight against the Sudanese army.
In mid-December, the militias entered the island, the agricultural heart of the country, about 180 kilometers south of Khartoum, for the first time, and took control of it after the army withdrew. The RSF reportedly attacked civilians, looted homes, stole cars, occupied land, and overwhelmed entire communities. Their first goal was to seize food and equipment, but the RSF quickly seized control of the country’s main food production facilities. Experts believe that the consequences will be catastrophic.
A recent CNN investigation found that the RSF forcibly recruited nearly 700 men and 65 children as part of their rampage in Jazira state between January and March. Witnesses said that the Rapid Support Forces used torture, executions, intimidation of their families, and deprivation of food and medical aid.
The network broadcast videos on villagers’ mobile phones depicting the January attack in which the Rapid Support Forces executed six men who refused to join the army.
On February 27, the militia stormed another village to recruit 20 young men. In the face of their refusal, the RSF looted and burned homes, markets, and food warehouses. Witnesses also explained how RSF recruits were “rewarded with food and aid stolen from others.”
Mohamed Badawi, a lawyer at the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies, told CNN that the RSF’s tactics amount to a “forced labor system.”
On January 18, the Rapid Support Forces stormed the headquarters of the Al-Jazeera Project, one of the largest irrigation projects in the world. Omar Marzouk, Al Jazeera’s program director, sent the Sudanese government a list of everything they had stolen: tractors, seeds, fertilizer, and warehouses full of food. “Whoever controls the island will control food production in the country,” Alex de Waal, an expert on the Horn of Africa, told CNN.
Both sides of the conflict have been accused of obstructing or refusing to facilitate relief efforts, and experts say widespread hunger is getting worse.
According to a February report by the Clingendael Institute, an independent think tank, Sudan experienced the worst famine in history during the harvest season from October to February.
Researcher Annette Hoffman, who wrote the Clingendael report, said the severity and scale of the famine during the next lean season, in mid-2024, would be “catastrophic.”
The RSF was accused of preventing farmers from harvesting crops and putting about 7 million people at risk of “mass starvation” last june.
