UN accuses paramilitary RSF of committing war crimes in Sudan’s el-Fasher

The Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out war crimes and a possible crime against humanity in its takeover of Sudan’s western city of el-Fasher last year, the United Nations human rights office has said.

In a report (PDF) released on Friday, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said “there are reasonable grounds to believe” the RSF and allied armed groups committed acts amounting to war crimes.

Those acts include murder, intentional attacks against civilians, sexual violence such as rape, torture, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war, the report found.

“If committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, these acts may also amount to a crime against humanity,” it said.

The RSF seized control of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, on October 26, 2025, after the withdrawal of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which have been fighting the paramilitary group for control of Sudan since April 2023.

The takeover came after an 18-month siege that cut el-Fasher off from food, medicine and other critical supplies and prompted warnings of mass starvation.

Tens of thousands of residents fled the city after the RSF took control, according to UN figures, with many describing widespread violence on their journeys out of el-Fasher. Human rights advocates and other experts also warned that mass killings had taken place.

‘Like a horror movie’

Friday’s report, which the UN said was based on interviews with more than 140 victims and witnesses, described the mass killing of hundreds of people at an El Fasher University dormitory called Al-Rashid.

According to survivors of the attack, RSF fighters besieged the building, which had been sheltering about 1,000 civilians, and opened fire with “heavy weapons”, the report found. About 500 people were killed, and many others were wounded.

“One witness described how bodies were thrown into the air by the force of the assault, ‘like a scene out of a horror movie’,” the UN rights office said.

The report also documented several instances of summary executions, with survivors and witnesses describing how the RSF killed civilians accused of collaborating with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and allied groups.

In one case, on October 26, a witness reported seeing RSF fighters round up about 300 young men in el-Fasher’s Daraja Oula neighbourhood before dividing them into groups of 30.

“The RSF fighters then opened fire on each group until there was no longer any movement, lobbed grenades at some groups, and deployed a gas burner against others, systematically executing all of those that had been detained,” the report said.

The RSF and its supporters initially tried to downplay the atrocities committed in el-Fasher, accusing allied armed groups of being responsible. The group’s leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, has also promised an investigation.

UN calls for probe

Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, on Friday called for “credible and impartial investigations” into what happened in el-Fasher.

“These must lead to meaningful accountability for perpetrators of exceptionally serious crimes, through all available means,” said Turk, including in Sudanese courts, third states, or at the International Criminal Court or other mechanisms.

Turk also called on all parties to the conflict in Sudan to end human rights violations and on third countries “with influence” to take action to prevent further atrocities.

“This includes respecting the arms embargo already in place, and ending the supply, sale or transfer of arms or military material to the parties,” he said.

Deadly violence has continued in several regions of Sudan, with a Sudanese doctors’ group saying this week that at least two children were killed in an RSF drone attack on a mosque in North Kordofan state.

Sudan has accused the United Arab Emirates of providing military and financial support to the RSF, an allegation that Abu Dhabi has vehemently denied.