The phrase “RSF atrocities in El Fasher” captures one of the darkest chapters of Sudan’s war, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized the North Darfur capital after an 18-month siege and unleashed a wave of killings, sexual violence, detention, torture and disappearances.
UN investigators, Amnesty International, and human rights organizations argue that the attack was not one of random battlefield brutality but an identity-based campaign that could amount to crimes against humanity, and, according to UN investigators, even has the “hallmarks of genocide.” The UN claimed that the RSF’s capture of El Fasher at the end of October 2025 followed months of isolation of civilians from food, water, medicine, and humanitarian aid, leading to conditions which weakened the population before the final attack. Amnesty International, in its report released on 30 June 2026, found that the RSF had committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in and around El Fasher between early 2024 and October 2025.
Siege As Strategy
What makes the El Fasher case especially alarming is the apparent use of siege as a weapon. The UN fact-finding mission said the city endured an 18-month siege that
“deliberately imposed conditions of life”
through deprivation and confinement, while Amnesty said the blockade from May 2024 to October 2025 restricted the entry of food and humanitarian supplies and helped trigger famine. The mission said the siege “systematically weakened the targeted population through starvation, deprivation, trauma and confinement,” leaving many unable to flee when the final attack came. That framework matters because it shifts the analysis from a conventional military operation to a pattern of coercion against civilians, particularly in a city where people had already been displaced repeatedly by earlier waves of Darfur violence.
Scale Of Atrocities
The reported scale is staggering. OHCHR said it documented more than 6,000 killings in the first three days of the RSF offensive, while warning that the total death toll over the weeks-long assault was “undoubtedly significantly higher”.
In just one incident, up to 500 civilians were reported dead after RSF forces attacked civilians taking refuge at the Al-Rashid dormitory at El-Fasher University in the early hours of 26 October 2025. According to Amnesty, there was a massacre at the escape routes and the berms around the city, where “hundreds [were] executed,” while others were tortured or detained as they attempted to leave the area. Amnesty further pointed to violence perpetrated against children through murder, abduction, recruitment, and rape.
Ethnic Targeting
In both the UN and Amnesty reports, the claim is that the killings were not random. According to UN investigators, the RSF committed ethnically motivated killings, rape and enforced disappearance of the Zaghawa and Fur tribes and found that there were at least three genocidal acts in the killings: killing members of a protected group, inflicting serious physical and psychological harm on the group, and creating living conditions that destroy the group.
The mission said genocidal intent was “the only reasonable inference” from a pattern of targeted killings, rape, destruction and public statements calling for the elimination of non-Arab communities. Survivors reported RSF fighters saying,
“Is there anyone Zaghawa among you? If we find Zaghawa, we will kill them all”
and
“We want to eliminate anything black from Darfur,”
language that the investigators treated as evidence of intent.
Horror On The Ground
The testimonies make it easier to understand why the El Fasher case has made so much sense. For example, the UN report had testimonies from those who witnessed the bodies being thrown in the air “as if from a horror movie.” The testimonies were taken by Amnesty from the survivors who talked about serious cases of humiliation, beatings, torture, rape, and detention in very crowded and overheated conditions. Some of the most clear-cut trends were the cases of men and boys who were alleged of collaboration with the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Joint Forces due to non-Arab ethnicity, including Zaghawa. Women and girls from non-Arab ethnicities suffered from rape and gang rapes, while some were sexually assaulted during the body search and abduction.
Women And Children
Children were especially vulnerable in the El Fasher campaign. Amnesty’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said,
“The war in Sudan is a war on civilians. The world was warned of the horrors that civilians in El Fasher confronted as the RSF laid siege to the city. It is a stain on the conscience of humanity”.
It was found that children were not victims by accident but that children were often intentionally targeted, killed, wounded, sexually abused, kidnapped and forcefully recruited. The group documented the kidnapping of a 13 year old girl named Tasneem who was kidnapped following the killing of her father by RSF forces. She was later raped by a number of men while blindfolded. The report highlighted that children suffered as a result of famine, displacement and disease. One such case saw a mother losing a baby born in twins following months of starvation in a besieged city.
Detention And Torture
Another alarming aspect of the El Fasher operation involved the deployment of detention, kidnapping, and torture to exercise control and make profit. Amnesty has interviewed 45 individuals held without legal justification by the RSF, eight of whom were children, and discovered that the individuals were being beaten, subjected to ethnic insults, kept without food and confined to crowded rooms where disease spread quickly. In extreme situations, it was alleged that scores, or even hundreds, died due to dehydration and disease.
The report also describes the Mina al-Bari detention centre on the eastern outskirts of El Fasher, where men were reportedly kept in shipping containers for months in extreme heat. One detainee said,
“You cannot stretch your legs… You cannot sleep long… [The RSF] told me, ‘We don’t care if you die’”.
These details point to cruelty that went beyond battlefield detention and into deliberate degradation of civilians.
Command And Responsibility
Both the UN and Amnesty pushed the question of command responsibility. The UN fact-finding mission said the scale, coordination and public endorsement of the operation by senior RSF leadership showed the crimes were “not random excesses of war” but part of a “planned and organized operation” with the defining characteristics of genocide. It warned that, without effective prevention and accountability, the risk of further genocidal acts remained “serious and ongoing”.
Like Amnesty International, the organization stated that the violations took place on repeated and wide-scale basis, which implies the knowledge or at least awareness of the people in power that nothing was done about it or about the perpetrators of such actions. According to the organization, there were some RSF commanders behind such severe violations, which included mass killings on video tape.
International Response
The international response has been shaped by warnings that El Fasher may not be an isolated case. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said,
“Persistent impunity fuels continued cycles of violence”,
and called for credible investigations, accountability and stronger protection for civilians. The UN mission also urged states with influence to help prevent further atrocities, including by respecting the arms embargo and halting weapons transfers.
Amnesty called for an immediate ceasefire and the deployment of an international force to protect civilians, warning that without urgent action attacks would continue unhindered. It also urged stronger support for accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court and UN-backed fact-finding efforts, and said countries should stop supplying arms to all parties in the conflict.