When the Sudanese army and the Joint Forces recaptured the Jabra al-Sheikh area in Kordofan late last month, the most striking sight was not the scale of the military destruction, but what had been done to the area's main hospital. It had been rendered completely inoperable after being subjected to destruction, looting, and vandalism that spared neither the operating rooms nor the children's wards nor other essential facilities. A place meant to serve as a refuge for the sick had been turned into a military barracks and a weapons depot before being left in ruins, depriving thousands of civilians of their most basic right to health care.
The scene was no exception. It was part of a pattern repeated across many of the areas entered by the Rapid Support Forces during the war. The marks of destruction remain visible in Khartoum, Al-Jazira, and large parts of Darfur and Kordofan, where public service facilities, infrastructure, markets, and homes were all targeted. As a result, the consequences of the war have extended beyond the battlefield into the lives of civilians and the future of their communities.
It is difficult to regard these incidents as mere collateral damage. They are consistent with what is known as a "scorched-earth policy," a strategy of destroying resources and facilities to prevent an adversary from using them. However, the strategy loses any military justification once it is directed against civilians and the resources on which their lives depend. At that point, it ceases to be a military tactic and becomes a means of collective punishment and intimidation, and may, depending on the circumstances of each case, amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.
The effects of this pattern are therefore not confined to buildings. They extend to society itself. When homes are burned, markets looted, and hospitals and schools destroyed, the objective is no longer simply to control an area, but to render it uninhabitable and force its residents into displacement. That opens the door to long-term demographic change. Sudan, particularly Darfur, has witnessed painful examples of this pattern, where the burning of villages has gone hand in hand with the displacement of entire communities.
The scorched-earth policy also serves a psychological purpose that is no less important than its military one. The goal is not merely to control the land, but to break people's will. As images of burned villages, destroyed hospitals, and looted markets spread, fear itself becomes a weapon. Civilians flee their communities before the attackers arrive, allowing the objective to be achieved with little actual fighting because terror arrives before the armed force.
The policy also leaves long-term damage to the social fabric. Rebuilding demolished structures may be possible, but rebuilding trust between communities is far more difficult. As displacement and forced migration continue, services break down, and economic life collapses, social divisions deepen, making recovery more costly and more complex.
Nor does the damage stop at tearing the social fabric. It also undermines the prospects for recovery once the war ends. When hospitals, schools, water and electricity networks, markets, and banks are destroyed, residents struggle to return even after the fighting has stopped. The absence of basic services and livelihoods delays the resumption of normal life, prolongs displacement, and drives up reconstruction costs. As a result, the consequences of war remain visible for years after the guns fall silent, and recovery itself becomes another victim of the scorched-earth policy.
International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on or destruction of civilian objects unless required by military necessity. The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols also prohibit the starvation of civilians and the destruction of resources essential to their survival. United Nations mechanisms have affirmed that serious violations of these rules may constitute war crimes. When such violations are linked to the targeting of a particular group with the intent to destroy it, in whole or in part, they may amount to even graver crimes under international law.
In this context, reports by the United Nations and independent international organizations have documented serious violations attributed to the Rapid Support Forces, including killing, torture, sexual violence, forced displacement, and persecution on ethnic grounds. The United States has concluded that the attacks targeting the Masalit in West Darfur amounted to genocide, while the United Nations described what happened in El Fasher as "a stain on the conscience of humanity."
Yet even from a purely political perspective, the scorched-earth policy carries the seeds of its own failure. Force may impose temporary control over territory, but it cannot win the loyalty of the population. On the contrary, destroying homes, hospitals, and markets while starving civilians only deepens hostility and undermines any prospect of legitimacy or public acceptance. What is destroyed in days takes years to rebuild, and the trust lost through these crimes may never be restored.
The most dangerous aspect of the scorched-earth policy, therefore, is not the scale of the destruction it leaves behind, but the lasting impact it has on the future of society and the state. It does not merely devastate the present. It mortgages the future to renewed cycles of hatred and division and pushes peace further out of reach, even after the guns fall silent. Destruction may be easy, but rebuilding people, trust, and the nation is the far more difficult task.
