Satellite images have revealed the tragic aftermath of a 48-hour massacre in Sudan which saw over 2,000 civilians executed by paramilitary rebels.
The sand around the western city of El Fasher is now stained red with pools of blood so thick they can be seen from space.
The satellite images also captured piles of bodies, of mainly women and children, who were tragically targeted during the two-day ethnic purge after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Following more than 18 months of brutal siege warfare, the group gained control over every state capital in the cast Darfur region.
Allies of the army, the Joint Forces, said on Tuesday that the RSF ‘committed heinous crimes against innocent civilians, where more than 2,000 unarmed citizens were executed and killed on October 26 and 27, most of them women, children and the elderly’.
The total death toll could not immediately be confirmed, but the shocking satellite images taken after the fall of El Fasher showed evidence of the mass killings.
Body-sized objects were seen in the satellite images clustered around vehicles and nearby an RSF sand berm built around the city. There have been reports of civilians being gunned down as they attempted to break out and flee the bloodshed.
Analysis by the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), which has been tracking the siege using open source images and satellite imagery, found clusters of objects ‘consistent with the size of human bodies’ and ‘reddish ground discolouration’ thought to be either blood or disturbed soil.
Satellite images have revealed the tragic aftermath of a 48-hour massacre in Sudan which saw over 2,000 civilians executed by paramilitary rebels
Bodies and blood: The sand around the western city of El Fasher is now stained red with pools of blood so thick they can be seen from space
Pool of blood: The total death toll could not immediately be confirmed, but the shocking satellite images taken after the fall of El Fasher showed evidence of the mass killing
Bodies and blood: The satellite images captured piles of bodies, of mainly women and children, who were tragically targeted during the two-day ethnic purge after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces
New York’s new mayor, 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani, didn’t step into office alone. By his side stood Rama Duwaji
, a Brooklyn-based illustrator and animator whose quiet grace has captivated the city’s attention. The pair met on Hinge in 2021—he was a rising politician, she a freelance artist finding her voice. In early 2025, they quietly married at the City Clerk’s office, choosing simplicity over spectacle. When online critics tried to target her, Mamdani publicly defended her, saying, “Rama isn’t just my wife; she’s an incredible artist who deserves to be known on her own terms.”
Born in the U.S. and raised in Dubai, Duwaji’s art explores layered identity—Syrian and American, Arab and Western. Her vibrant illustrations celebrate sisterhood, domestic rituals, and resilience. After earning her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, her thesis “Sahtain!” (“bon appétit”) mapped family memories through food. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, BBC, Apple, and Tate Modern.
Though social media buzzed with praise for her “First Lady poise,” Duwaji has declined interviews, preferring her art to speak for her. Like her husband—born in Kampala, raised in Cape Town, and now New York’s first Muslim mayor—she channels her story into purpose.
As Mamdani tackles housing and equity from City Hall, Duwaji continues creating from her Brooklyn studio, shaping empathy through art. Together, they represent a modern partnership: two immigrants who found home in New York, building change—one through policy, the other through paint.