A civil war is ripping apart Sudan, one of Africa’s largest countries.

Tens of thousands have been killed, millions scattered and an enormous famine looms, setting off one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises.

The city of El Fasher, home to 1.8 million people, is now at the center of global alarm. If it falls, officials warn, there may be little to stop a massacre.

Fighters battling Sudan’s military for control of the country have encircled the city. Gunfights rage. Hospitals have closed. Residents are running out of food.

The advancing fighters are known as the Rapid Support Forces — the successors to the notorious Janjaweed militias that slaughtered ethnic African tribes in Darfur in the 2000s. Last week, the U.N. Security Council demanded that they “halt the siege” of the city.

Yet a New York Times examination of satellite imagery and video from El Fasher make one thing clear:

The assault is intensifying.

The Times analyzed videos and satellite images of El Fasher, along with imagery analysis from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab and the Sudan Witness Project at the Centre for Information Resilience, a nonprofit organization that documents potential war crimes.

The evidence shows that thousands of homes have been systematically razed and that tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee. Videos show the demeaning treatment of captives and the presence of a senior Rapid Support Forces commander recently singled out by U.S. sanctions for his role in atrocities against civilians.

The Sudanese military, too, has faced accusations of war crimes, mostly for the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas with artillery and airstrikes. On May 11, Doctors Without Borders said, the military bombed an area next to a children’s hospital.

‘Precipice’ of a massacre

The siege of El Fasher has disturbing echoes of Rapid Support Forces tactics elsewhere in Darfur, where assaults were accompanied by ethnic slaughter, experts say.

Last fall, when the fighters captured El Geneina, near Sudan’s border with Chad, as many as 15,000 people were killed in a matter of days, U.N. investigators found.

Now El Fasher residents fear a repeat.

Longstanding ethnic tensions have underpinned the violence in Darfur for decades. Just as the Arab-dominated Janjaweed carried out a genocidal campaign against ethnic Africans in the 2000s, the Rapid Support Forces are targeting them now, with international warnings that a genocide could happen again.

In April, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American ambassador to the U.N., warned that El Fasher was “on the precipice of a large-scale massacre.”

Aid supplies choked

El Fasher is not just a city under siege. It is also a hub for relief aid in a region hurtling toward famine.

Already 1.7 million people are starving in Darfur, the U.N. says. Now, the consequences of the war are rippling across the region, which is the size of Spain.

Food and medicine are running short in East Darfur, where tens of thousands fled the fighting, because the supply route through El Fasher has been cut off, aid workers say. And in Central Darfur, some food prices doubled after commercial traders could no longer operate, according to Islamic Relief, an aid group working there.

The crisis is compounded by a severe lack of funds. The United Nations issued an emergency appeal for $2.7 billion. It has received less than a fifth of that.

American officials accuse both sides in the civil war of using hunger as a weapon.

Commanders Accused of Crimes

Several R.S.F. commanders who led campaigns elsewhere in Sudan joined the fight for El Fasher, according to videos verified by The Times and the Sudan Witness Project. They include Ali Yagoub Gibril, the R.S.F. commander for Central Darfur state, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in May for his role in violence that caused civilian casualties. He was killed on June 14, according to Sudan’s military.

Broadcasting the presence of prominent leaders signifies the importance of El Fasher to the R.S.F. But it could also demonstrate their responsibility for atrocities, said Matthew Gillett, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex who previously worked at international criminal courts.

Videos showing R.S.F. leaders in close proximity to attacks on civilians “could help show the commanders’ awareness and command and control at the time,” Mr. Gillett said, even if the attacks were committed by their subordinates.

“The videos from El Fasher could become critical evidence in future trials for crimes in Darfur.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual aid pact on Wednesday, bringing the two nations closer than ever since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The pact, which both leaders emphasized is a landmark agreement between the countries, reportedly covers defensive security, humanitarian relief, trade and investment concerns.

Putin thanked Kim on Wednesday for North Korea’s “unwavering support” of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

PUTIN TOUCHES DOWN IN PYONGYANG, SAYS ‘HEROIC PEOPLE’ OF NORTH KOREA WILL ‘CONFRONT’ WEST WITH RUSSIA

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday claimed Putin’s visit was part of a desperate attempt to maintain international allies despite the increasingly drawn out invasion.

“We’ve seen […] Russia try, in desperation, to develop and to strengthen relations with countries that can provide it with what it needs to continue the war of aggression that it started against Ukraine,” said Blinken.

He added that the U.S. will “do everything we can to cut off the support that countries, like Iran and North Korea, are providing.”

DOZENS OF NORTH KOREAN SOLDIERS REPEATEDLY BREACH FORBIDDEN ZONE WITH SOUTH KOREA AHEAD OF PUTIN VISIT

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, listens to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea. Putin received a red carpet welcome, a military ceremony and an embrace from Kim during a state visit to Pyongyang, where they both pledged to forge closer ties. (KRISTINA KORMILITSYNA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Kim has been enthusiastic about building associations with Russia and China in order to build international legitimacy despite his country’s dismal human rights record.

The hermit country has worked to supply munitions and other military resources to the Russian military since the beginning of the war against Ukraine. Weapons baring marks that indicate North Korean manufacturing have been recovered by the Ukrainian military.

Putin last visited North Korea in 2000, when the hereditary dictatorship was under the control of Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea. (GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was founded in 1948 with direct influence from Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

The Kim family — sometimes referred to as the Mount Paektu bloodline — is the hereditary dictatorship of the country founded by communist revolutionary Kim Il Sung. 

North Korea operates under the state ideology of Juche, a quasi-communist worldview founded on a cult of personality and enthusiastic nationalism.

While the exact composition of the new European Parliament still remains uncertain, as political parties still need to confirm their lists, Euronews profiles four freshly elected MEPs who were all social media influencers before becoming politicians.  

Fidias Panayiotou

Better known by the pseudonym ‘Fidias’, 24-year-old Cypriot Panayiotou openly admits to knowing nothing about politics or the European Union, and to the fact that he has never voted. Yet he was elected third in Cyprus as an independent on an impressive 19.4% share of the vote. 

Among his most viewed videos are ‘I Hugged The World’s Top 100 Celebrities’ (14 million views), ‘I Spent 10 Days In The Airport For Free’ (five million views), and ‘I Spent Ten Days In a VR Headset’ (5.7 million views). His 382 videos on YouTube have amassed him 2.62 million subscribers.  

However, the YouTuber has not escaped controversy. An October 2023 video titled ‘I Travelled Across Japan For Free’ outraged his audience, who judged his behaviour disrespectful. The video featured him begging from locals, evading ticket inspectors, sneaking into a five-star hotel without paying and eventually – perhaps inevitably – winding up at a police station. He later apologised.  

A few months later in 2024, he announced his candidacy for the European Parliament in a video on a secondary YouTube channel in Greek, his mother tongue. He said that he didn’t seek election so much as to motivate young people to get involved in politics.  

It is still unclear whether he will join a political party in the European Parliament or remain unaffiliated.   

Filip Turek

Turek is a complex character. The Czech national MEP is simultaneously a car enthusiast, entrepreneur, author and influencer, but has also been linked to Nazi paraphernalia.  

Having lived ‘a thousand lives’ as the blurb for his autobiography put it, Turek started out as a graphic design student, later studying law in Prague before pursuing his passion for motorsport, becoming a professional racing driver from 2015 to 2018. He has a penchant for collecting luxury cars and firearms.  

In 2022, Turek ventured into politics, becoming a political commentator for the media VOX TV. His libertarian views, fierce opposition to the EU, especially its green policies, and provocative comments about Ursula von der Leyen and other female politicians quickly garnered attention.  

More notoriously, during his campaign, photos and interviews suggesting neo-Nazi affiliations resurfaced. He was seen performing a Nazi salute from a car, wearing a helmet with the symbol of the Greek neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn, and in 2016, he described himself as a collector of Nazi artefacts. However, Turek denies any connections to neo-Nazi movements, he explains his gestures by his ‘stupid dark humour’.  

Despite the controversies, Turek’s political stance did not prevent him from a strong performance in the elections. His party, Přísaha and Motorists, secured 10.3% of the vote, earning two seats in the European Parliament, surpassing the governing parties STAN and Piráti, which received 8.7% and 6.2% respectively.  

When interviewed by Czech media outlet Seznam Zprávy about his plans in Brussels, Turek suggested that joining the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group would be the logical choice, though he noted that negotiations are ongoing and nothing is yet confirmed. He appears likely to keep his promise of arriving at the first plenary session of the European Parliament in ‘a very powerful and fast car with a huge carbon footprint’.  

Alvise Pérez

 A surprise candidate, 34-year-old Spaniard Alvise Pérez was elected along with two of his running mates with 4.58% of the votes. Up to now, aside from being popular on social media among conspiracy theorists, he remains largely unknown to the broader Spanish public. Despite his controversial reputation, his career began relatively conventionally.  

The young man, whose real name is Luis Pérez Fernández, studied Political Science in Spain before dropping out and enrolling at the University of Leeds in England. There, he became involved with the youth wing of the Liberal Democrats, before abandoning his studies in December 2018 to move to Valencia and become Chief of Staff for Toni Cantó, a deputy in the Valencian Regional Parliament for Ciudadanos (centre-right/liberal). Less than a year later, everything changed when he made Islamophobic and sexist remarks in posts on Twitter. He was replaced in November 2019 following these incidents. 

He then moved to Madrid and reinvented himself as a ‘political influencer.’ He became known for his critiques of the political establishment and gained notoriety during the Covid-19 pandemic for his outspoken anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown views. This controversial stance led to a temporary suspension of his Twitter account for spreading misinformation. However, he denies lying or the qualification of ‘conspiracy theorist’. 

Translation: According to the media, ‘no one was ever forced to get vaccinated,’ and according to Pedro Sánchez, ‘there was never any lockdown.’ Yet, here they label Alvise Pérez as crazy for stating what everyone knows. It’s surreal that he’s the only one speaking out about all this, and they call him a ‘conspiracy theorist’.

Another pivotal moment in his career was his interview with Luis Rubiales, the president of the Spanish Football Federation, who had infamously kissed a national player without consent. Pérez used the interview to attack feminism, which ultimately resulted in the permanent deletion of his Twitter account. In October 2023, he again drew public attention by inciting violent protests against the Sánchez government and its proposed amnesty law.  

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At the beginning of 2024, Pérez’s political career took a turn when he founded ‘Se Acabó la Fiesta’ (‘The Party is Over’ in English), right-wing, anti-establishment group, and announced his candidacy for the 2024 European elections. He claimed to be running solely to gain parliamentary immunity, in an effort to protect against various legal claims he still faces for defamation and spreading false information.  

Andreu Casero-Ripollés, Professor of Journalism and Political Communication at the Universitat Jaume I, told Euronews that Pérez is a candidate without clear electoral pledges. ‘His agenda is primarily about fighting against corruption, challenging traditional parties, and promoting a far-right platform associated with ultra-Catholic, anti-abortion, and anti-immigration stances,’ Casero-Ripollés told Euronews. Pérez positions himself as a champion of the people, opposing political and media elites, which he disparagingly refers to as ‘media information whores.’  

Pérez’s campaign, partly funded each month by his 655 paid Patreon members, was conducted exclusively on social media, where he shared content with his 538,000 Telegram followers and 950,000 Instagram followers. His messaging often mirrored that of populist leaders such as Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Bukele, in particular, inspires Pérez’s advocacy for stringent security measures that critics argue undermine the rule of law.  

On 9th June, Pérez secured the support of 796,560 Spaniards. However, in a surprising move, he announced on Telegram that he would not be travelling to Brussels. ‘Spaniards are not represented by abandoning their country,’ he declared. It remains unclear how he intends to carry out his responsibilities as an MEP from Spain.  

Read more about Alvise Pérez on the portrait by Jaime Velazquez. 

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Jordan Bardella

Reducing Jordan Bardella to the status of an influencer would, of course, be a mistake. But did you know that before joining the National Rally, he attempted to become a YouTuber?  

This was revealed in an investigation by Le Monde, published on 2 June 2024. Starting in 2012, Jordan Bardella was posting videos on YouTube, sharing his best shots in the video game Call of Duty to his 3,000 subscribers under the pseudonym MrJordan9320 – a number referencing the postal code of the city of Saint-Denis, in the Paris suburbs.  

Following this revelation, internet users managed to dig up these videos, that have been since deleted, from the depths of the internet. On his channel, as well as on a secondary one named ActuCritiqueHD (HD Critical news, in english), he mostly talked about video games but would also criticize other content creators.

Le Monde also claims that he was very active under the same pseudonym on one of the forums of the site JeuxVideo.com, a very popular exchange platform for the gaming community. He reportedly posted over 1,000 messages with his account. Even more surprising, internet users discovered his participation in a voice-over competition in 2012.  

Twelve years later, this ability to master the codes of social media has enabled him to amass 1.6 million followers on TikTok and to rank most popular in the European elections among French youth. The legislative elections on 30 June will be crucial in determining if MrJordan9320 will become Monsieur le Premier Ministre.  

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Social media: youth engager or democracy crusher?

‘The parties should take it as a warning that they must modernise and listen to the people,’ Cypriot YouTuber Fidias told state broadcaster CyBC, when elected, of the role of social media.  

‘Traditional political actors downplay the importance of the success of Albert Perez and claim this is an anomaly,’ according to Professor Casero-Ripollés, who believes the political establishment underestimates the role of political influencers. Their influence is only likely to spread, he believes, as such outsiders are gaining influence among the those aged 40 and younger.  

Casero-Ripollés elaborated on how different social media platforms cater to different audiences and age groups. Older users are more likely to be on Facebook, for example, while younger prefer TikTok. ‘Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter traditionally generate weak ties because it’s very open; people come and go really easily. Messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram generate strong ties because they are private channels, and so they connect in a more personal way to other people.’ He noted that political influencers are particularly skilled at combining all these platforms effectively.  

The professor’s research indicates that political influencers excel in mobilising public anger and political grievances from internet users critical of the established system, parties, and government. They transform these feelings into coherent and appealing messages, conveyed in the familiar language of social media, which they master. This ability distinguishes them from traditional politicians.