The battles primarily lasted between April 24 and June 14, 2023, with major attacks and massacres by the RSF and allied militias on Masalit civilians in the city.

[16] Bodies of Masalit civilians were piled up in the streets from April to June during the genocidal[17] campaign, and thousands fled to the Sudanese army garrison at Ardamata and towards the Chadian border.

[19] Renewed clashes broke out in Ardamata and Geneina in early November 2023, as RSF and Janjaweed militias stormed the Sudanese Army garrison where thousands of civilians sought refuge from the massacres earlier that year.

The rebellion began partially due to feelings of marginalization among Zaghawa, Fur, and Masalit civilians in Darfur following Arabization campaigns carried out by President Omar al-Bashir.

[20] In 2013, the formation of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Hemedti, a Rizeigat Arab, began conducting operations against the rebel groups.

[24] Despite the Juba Peace Agreement ending the War in Darfur and the UNAMID peacekeeping mission, Geneina and surrounding areas were attacked by the RSF and Janjaweed between 2019 and 15 April 2023.

[27][15] In 2022, both Masalit and Arab militias, including the Sudanese Alliance and RSF, began a massive recruitment campaign along tribal lines in all of Darfur.

[34] These tensions erupted into war on April 15, when RSF fighters stormed Khartoum International Airport and other Sudanese Army bases across the country.

[15] Ahmed Gouja, a journalist in Nyala, corroborated the claims of the Arab-Masalit clashes, and that civilians had stolen weapons from the police station to protect themselves and their neighborhoods.

[45] RSF fighters deliberately targeted areas that civilians gathered at, including government offices and Zahra girl's boarding school.

[45] As the RSF and Janjaweed attacked Masalit-majority neighborhoods, thousands of Masalit civilians headed towards former UNAMID bases, police stations, and SAF outposts searching for weapons to defend themselves.

[44] Volker Perthes, the UN representative to Sudan, released a statement that day claiming that tribal leaders in El-Geneina restarted mobilization campaigns.

[49] One resident, speaking to the BBC, claimed RSF soldiers burnt down all refugee camps in and around the city, and that fighters were attacking houses with rockets.

The few hospitals that remained open in late April and early May reported a lack of blood for transfusions and concomitant equipment, intravenous fluids and general medical supplies.

[60][61] The Sudanese Doctors' Syndicate stated that the death toll of the attacks was 280 killed and over 160 wounded, with that number due to rise as fighting continues.

[16] Local hospitals and activists reported dozens of injuries and bodies coming in every day, many being gunshot wounds to young men by RSF and allied attacks on their camps.

[72] The Sudanese Doctors Union had reported around 200 dead with hundreds injured by May 17, with civilians by then stating that conditions on anything in the city had worsened in the past few days.

[74] Several residents interviewed by Reuters stated that RSF and Arab militiamen would occupy homes, and recalled instances were seven members of a family were killed in their house, and twelve injured people and a doctor were gunned down in a makeshift hospital.

[15] On 6 June, West Darfur deputy governor El Bukhari Abdullah stated 850 people were killed and over 2,000 injured since fighting broke out in the city on 15 April.

On the morning of June 15, RSF and allied militias attacked the convoy and slaughtered hundreds of fleeing civilians, forcing some to attempt to swim across the Kaja River towards Krinding to dodge the bullets.

[3] The association claimed that despite a small garrison of Sudanese Army forces holed up in the city, the RSF, led by Jumma, were in control of the region and its surroundings.

[93] Several other prominent people were killed in attacks on 19 and 20 June, including Sadig Haroun, the Commissioner of Humanitarian Aid in the city, and several mayors and imams.

[94] Numerous villages, neighborhoods, and cultural sites in and around Geneina were destroyed, including the city's Grand Market and the palace of the Masalit Sultanate.

[3] The Sultanate called the situation a "genocide", and footage emerged of corpses being used as barricades, and the bodies of men, women, and children strewn across the streets.

[16] The destruction of homes first occurred on a mass scale in al-Jabal neighborhood in late April and early May, but expanded to al-Jamarik, al-Madariss, al-Tadhamun, and al-Majlis by mid-May.

[16] On 12 August, a representative of the Masalit tribe, El Farsha Saleh Arbab Suleiman, gave a press conference in Port Sudan in which he accused the RSF of seeking to conceal evidence of crimes committed in Geneina by burying bodies in hidden locations and forcing the Sudanese Red Crescent Society (SRCS) to hand over bodies.

[45] Jumma had ordered the bombardment of various areas of the city, including al-Madariss neighborhood and Al Hojaj IDP camp, both of which were eventually destroyed.

Assil was responsible for mobilizing Janjaweed and Rizeigat militias in the leadup to the massacre on Geneina and distributed weapons to the fighters in mid and late April.

[112][111] The SAF's 15th Infantry Division had remained headquartered in Ardamata throughout the Geneina massacre and did little to relieve the atrocities or fight back against the RSF during its pillaging of the city.

[112] The RSF and allied militias attacked Ardamata on November 2, breaching the refugee camp the next day and killing thousands of Masalit men.