Satellite images show how Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is flouting international law by intentionally targeting civilians in the besieged city of el-Fasher – actions that should be considered war crimes, a research team from Yale University says.

“We’re looking at the growth of an entire new burial area with over 60 new mounds that have been built in just a two-week period,” Caitlin Howarth, from the university’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), told the BBC.

People are now completely trapped with no hope of escape as the RSF recently completed a 57km (35-mile) earthen wall around the city.

Desperate residents in the army’s last stronghold in Darfur say food has run out.

“There is nothing left to eat today – all food supplies have run out,” the resistance committee for el-Fasher, made up of local citizens and activists, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Even the alternatives that people clung to for survival have disappeared,” it said, referring to “ambaz”, a residue of peanuts after oil has been extracted, which is normally fed to animals.

Sudan plunged into a civil war in April 2023 after a vicious struggle for power broke out between the military and the RSF.

Since the conflict erupted, RSF fighters and allied Arab militia in Darfur have been accused of targeting people from non-Arab ethnic groups.

El-Fasher came under siege 18 months ago and a communications blackout makes it difficult to confirm information from the city as only those with satellite internet connections are contactable.

The resistance committee warned that time was running out for the estimated 300,000 people who still live in the city.

“We write, we scream, we plead; but it seems our words fall into a void,” it said. “There are no aid planes, no humanitarian airlifts, no real international movement and no ground efforts to break the siege.”

Community kitchens have had to stop providing meals to people seeking refuge in shelters, traders inside the city told the Sudan Tribune news website.

They added that all food goods had completely disappeared even from shops, which used to get smuggled stock to sell at exorbitant prices.

Ms Howarth told the BBC’s Newsday programme that in the last few months civilians had been driven by the RSF from the displacement camps around el-Fasher and other neighbourhoods by arson and in some cases by what looked like “house-to-house clearance operations”.

They were now in their last places of refuge in “increasingly smaller zones”, concentrated in shelters at mosques, near hospitals and markets – areas that were undergoing repeated bombardment.

Satellite images showed “burn scars” where specific buildings had been targeted with “horrific” results, according to Ms Howarth.

“We had air-deployed munitions – this could be a combination of drone and artillery that came in… through the roofs, exploding on impact and then burning everything that was within those structures,” she explained, adding that ground sources had told them the people inside had been “burned alive”.

The Yale HRL researchers found that over the last month attacks included those on two shelters, one of which was also a community kitchen, two mosques, one hospital and one market – killing at least 174 people and wounding at least 123 people.

“These incidents include only those that HRL corroborated through either remote sensing, open source documentation, or a combination of both methods and are likely an undercount,” its report said.

“These actions are prima facie war crimes and may rise to the level of crimes against humanity.”

The researchers also identified that between 26 September and 10 October, at least 60 burial mounds were created in a new cemetery in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood, one of the only areas still under the control of the army and their allies, local armed groups known as the Joint Forces.

Ms Howarth said there were now only four RSF-controlled exits out of the city.

“There should be calls for the immediate cessation of these hostilities, for civilians to be allowed to immediately and safely depart el-Fasher without harassment, without taxation, without the risk of extrajudicial execution,” she said.

“And aid and humanitarian aid access should be allowed completely in without any threat of bombardment or attack.”

If you’d have asked about Col Michael Randrianirina on the island of Madagascar before last weekend, you’d have got a lot of blank looks.

In just three days, however, he has become arguably the most powerful person in country.

Randrianirina’s sudden ascent began on Saturday, when as the head of Madagascar’s elite CAPSAT army unit, he drove with his troops into the centre of the capital city, joining thousands of protesters who had long been demanding the president’s resignation.

After Andry Rajoelina eventually fled the city and MPs voted to impeach him, 51-year-old Randrianirina stood in front of the vacant presidential palace and informed the world’s media that CAPSAT was taking over.

The constitutional court then declared that he was the country’s new ruler, even though the ousted president still insists that he remains in charge.

Randrianirina carries a rare air of mystery – for the leader of the country’s most powerful military unit, there is not much information about him in the public domain.

What we do know is that he was born in Sevohipoty, a village in the southern Androy region.

He later became the governor of Androy, serving between 2016 and 2018 under former President Hery Rajaonarimampianina.

Then, Randrianirina became head of an infantry battalion in the city of Toliara, a position he held until 2022.

He was a vocal critic of Rajoelina, an entrepreneur who took power via a coup in 2009, stepped down in 2013, then returned five years later after winning elections.

Randrianirina was jailed in a maximum-security prison without trial in November 2023, accused of inciting a mutiny and planning a coup.

Student groups, fellow soldiers and politicians were among those who argued Randrianirina had been imprisoned for unfair political reasons, and he was released in February the following year.

Just hours before announcing he was taking over Madagascar on Tuesday, Randrianirina told the BBC he was a mere “servant” of the people. He exuded charm, hospitality, confidence – but not arrogance.

Magalasy journalist Rivonala Razafison describes him as “simple but tough”, “straightforward” and “patriotic”.

Randrianirina certainly has thoughts about his country and how it is still influenced by France, Madagascar’s colonial master until 1960.

When offered the option to respond to the BBC’s questions in French, an official language in Madagascar, Randrianirina countered: “Why can’t I speak my language, Malagasy?” adding that he does not like glorifying the colonial tongue.

The CAPSAT leader has told local media that, moving forward, his priority is “social welfare” – a pressing issue in a country where roughly 75% of people live below the poverty line.

He has said the military will rule for up to two years alongside a civilian government before an election is held.

Sources have told Reuters that Randrianirina will be sworn in over the next day or two – a ceremony that will serve as a coda to a whirlwind few days that took him from mystery man to the officer everybody is talking about.