6,000 killed over three days during RSF attack on Sudan’s el-Fasher, says UN

More than 6,000 people were killed in over three days when a Sudanese paramilitary group unleashed “a wave of intense violence shocking in its scale and brutality” in Sudan’s Darfur region in late October, according to the United Nations.

The Rapid Support Forces’ offensive to capture the city of el-Fasher included widespread atrocities that amount to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, the UN Human Rights Office said in a report released on Friday.

“The wanton violations that were perpetrated by the RSF and allied Arab militia in the final offensive on el-Fasher underscore that persistent impunity fuels continued cycles of violence,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

The RSF and their allied Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, overran el-Fasher, the Sudanese army’s only remaining stronghold in Darfur, on October 26 and rampaged through the city and its surroundings after more than 18 months of siege.

The 29-page UN report detailed a set of atrocities that ranged from mass killings and summary executions, sexual violence, abductions for ransom, torture and ill-treatment to detention and disappearances. In many cases, the attacks were ethnicity-motivated, it said. The RSF did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment. The paramilitaries’ General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo has previously acknowledged abuses by his fighters, but disputed the scale of atrocities.

‘Like a scene out of a horror movie’ The alleged atrocities in el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur, mirror a pattern of RSF conduct in its war against the Sudanese miliary. The war began in April 2023 when a power struggle between the two sides exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere across the country.

The conflict created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with parts of the country pushed into famine. It has also been marked by heinous atrocities which the International Criminal Court said it was investigating as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The RSF was also accused by the Biden administration of carrying out genocide in the ongoing war.

The UN Human Rights Office said it documented the killing of at least 4,400 people inside el-Fasher between Oct. 25 and Oct. 27, while more than 1,600 others were killed as they were trying to flee the RSF rampage. The report said it drew its toll from interviews with 140 victims and witnesses which were “are consistent with independent analysis of contemporaneous satellite imagery and video footage.”

In one case, RSF fighters opened fire from heavy weapons on a crowd of 1,000 people sheltering in the Rashid dormitory in el-Fasher university on Oct. 26, killing around 500 people, the report said. One witness was quoted as saying that he saw bodies thrown into the air, “like a scene out of a horror movie,” according to the report. In another case, around 600 people, including 50 children, were executed on Oct. 26 while taking shelter in the university facilities, the report said. The report, however, warned that the actual scale of the death toll of the week-long offensive in el-Fasher was “undoubtedly significantly higher.”

The toll does not include at least 460 people who were killed by the RSF on Oct. 28 when they stormed the Saudi Maternity hospital, according to the World Health Organization. Around 300 people were also killed in RSF shelling and drone attacks between Oct. 23 and Oct. 24 in the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people, 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) northwest of el-Fasher, the U.N. Human Rights Office’ report said.             

Woman and girls sexually assaulted

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Sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, was apparently widespread during el-Fasher offensive, with RSF fighters and their allied militias targeting women and girls from the African Zaghawa non-Arab tribes over allegations of having links or supporting the miliary, the report said. Turk, who visited Sudan last month, said survivors of sexual violence recounted testimonies that showed how the practice “was systematically used as a weapon of war.”

The paramilitaries also abducted many people while attempting to flee the city, before releasing them after paying ramson. Thousands have been held in at least 10 detention centers - including the city’s Children Hospital which was turned into a detention facility - run by the RSF in el-Fasher, the report said.

The UN Human Rights Office also said it documented 10 detention facilities used by the paramilitaries in el-Fasher, including the Children’s Hospital which was turned into a detention center. Several thousands of people remain missing and unaccounted for, the report said.

The pattern of the RSF offensive on el-Fasher was a mirror of other attacks by the paramilitaries and their allies on the Zamzam camp for displaced people, 15 kilometres south of the city, and on West Darfur’s city of Geneina and the nearby town of Ardamata in 2023, the UN Human Rights Office said.

Turk said there were “reasonable grounds” that RSF and their allied Arab militias committed war crimes, and that their acts also amount to crimes against humanity. He called for holding those responsible - including commanders - accountable, warning that “persistent impunity fuels continued cycles of violence.