In the Sudanese city of Al-Fashir, drones hover ominously above a starving population. Markets that once thrived on the exchange of grain now deal in animal feed. Desperate mothers grind dry leaves into a bitter paste, a grim effort to sustain their children. The Rapid Support Forces have encircled the city for months, severing access to aid, water, medicine, and compassion. This siege has transformed hunger into a weapon and civilians into unwitting hostages. Yet, Al-Fashir represents more than just a tragedy unfolding in shadows; it offers a glimpse into Africa’s future of conflict.
Across the continent, the battlefields have begun to shift from expansive plains to densely populated cities. Wars are no longer waged for mere territory; instead, they are fought for dominion over the very people and the infrastructures that support their lives—food, water, electricity, and information. Urban warfare has emerged as the new frontier, favouring militias, insurgents, and private armies adept at vanishing among civilians and turning the ordinary into weaponry. When cities transform into battlegrounds, there are no frontlines to speak of, only blockades; no victors, only survivors.
Al-Fashir reveals what this next generation of conflict looks like. It is digital, asymmetric, and devastatingly intimate. Cheap commercial drones now deliver explosives and real-time intelligence once reserved for national armies. Paramilitaries rule streets through apps and propaganda as much as through guns. With a few hundred drones and a handful of commanders, a non-state group can now terrorize an entire city at a fraction of the cost of conventional warfare. The monopoly on violence that African states once claimed has dissolved into a marketplace of militias, contractors, and ideologues.
This is not the familiar disorder of failed states; rather, it represents a new, calculated system—one in which warfare has been effectively decentralized. Power is wielded not through governance, but through means such as starvation, isolation, and surveillance. Al-Fashir epitomises the outcome when modern technology is intertwined with the politics of neglect. The RSF does not need to emerge victorious; its only requirement is to endure. Here, siege transforms into strategy, and famine evolves into policy.
But its greater failing lies not with Sudan alone; it is with Africa’s overall inability to evolve. Our continental security system was designed for a vastly different era. The African Union’s Peace and Security Council was designed to police coups and interstate wars, not to anticipate drone attacks on crowded bazaars. Regional standby forces were conceived as peacekeepers, not as first responders to massive atrocities. The UN peacekeeping model still relies on the assumptions that both sides desire peace and that civilians can be shielded from harm. Neither is remotely correct in Al-Fashir.
What the continent needs now is not another expression of concern, but a rethinking of its security architecture. We must have a continental system of intelligence fusion that can spot sieges as they are forming, instead of after starvation occurs. This means that we would share satellite imagery, humanitarian indicators, and open-source materials across borders in real time. The African Union and United Nations should develop a joint rapid force that is light, mobile, and trained for both counter-drone warfare and counter-urban warfare that can be mobilized within days rather than months when civilians are surrounded. Consent cannot be used as a unit of action when consent itself is no longer intact.
Perhaps the most important reform is also the simplest: to invest in civilian resilience as a defense. Depots for food, communication networks, and energy lifelines must be considered strategic assets rather than humanitarian niceties. The society that can communicate outside its own lines of siege and feed itself is bulletproof against control. It is cheaper to spend on resilience than it is to rebuild rubble. The African security budget must then include not only bullets; it must include satellite phones, solar panels, and grain silos. In future wars, these are arms of survival.
Should we persist in leaning on the peacekeeping doctrines of the twentieth century, the twenty-first will undoubtedly entomb them beneath the rubble. Africa cannot afford to view each siege as a mere isolated crisis; rather, they represent signs of a continental fragility in the face of a new kind of warfare. The same dynamics observed in Al-Fashir—paramilitary power, urban sieges, starvation tactics, and the impotence of institutions—are already manifesting in Goma, in various parts of Libya, in northern Mozambique, and throughout the Sahel. The pattern is unmistakable, even if the world chooses to turn a blind eye.
If Al-Fashir falls, its effects will echo far beyond Darfur. It would represent a complete collapse of the final government stronghold in western Sudan and create a humanitarian chasm. For Darfur, it could represent ethnic cleansing on a scale not witnessed since the early 2000s as RSF forges territory and demographic dominance with violence and forced measures. It would send a clear message to every militia across Africa that siege and starvation are more effective than negotiation, that drones and blockade can replace governance. It would further erode Sudan’s already decayed state, speed its fragmentation into fiefdoms, and provide a void for overseas mercenaries and weapons traffickers to thrive. For the African Union, it would represent a strategic, moral collapse—evidence that Africa learned no lessons from Rwanda, Darfur, or Libya. And for civilians, it would represent an indefinite exile: a slow removal of a city, a culture, a nation.
Al-Fashir is more than a remote tragedy; it is a harsh message delivered by drones flying above a starved city’s landscape, warning us that the future of warfare is already here. If Africa’s leaders don’t reassess their tactics for protecting civilians, then the next Al-Fashir’s emergence will not be a question of when, but when again. The continent is at a critical turning point where it is balancing adaptation against amnesia. One leads to resilience and overhaul, while the other plunges down a slope of habitual sieges. In Al-Fashir, the clock has already begun to tick.
Vhahangwele Tsotetsi is a South African writer, youth advocate, and founder and Chairperson of Project YouthSA. He holds a degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Johannesburg. His work focuses on youth empowerment, civic participation, and good governance.