U.N. mission says RSF killings in Sudan’s Al-Fashir bear hallmarks of genocide

Mass killings by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces during the capture of the city of Al-Fashir bear the hallmarks of genocide, a U.N. fact-finding mission said in a report published Thursday.

FILE PHOTO: Orphaned Sudanese refugee children from al-Fashir share a free meal of pasta and meat provided by the "Group Kitchen Project," led by Najwa Isa Adam, inside the Tine transit camp in eastern Chad, as they flee ongoing clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, November 22, 2025.

REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo

The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission of the United Nations in Sudan said mass murders of non-Arab communities carried out as RSF fighters took Al-Fashir in western Sudan amounted to acts with “the characteristics of the crime of genocide.”

RSF forces seized Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, on Oct. 26 after more than a year of siege, the report said. Residents and defenders endured the period with virtually no outside help, while aid groups reported extreme conditions including hunger and a lack of medicines.

Before the takeover, the city and surrounding displacement camps were mainly home to non-Arab groups, the mission said, including Zaghawa residents in Al-Fashir and people from the Fur, Berti, Masalit and Tama ethnic groups in nearby camps.

Investigators said they found evidence that RSF fighters repeatedly carried out coordinated armed operations targeting individuals because of their gender, ethnicity or presumed political views. Acts of violence included mass killings, rapes and the imposition of living conditions intended to bring about the physical destruction of the group, according to the report.

“The scale, level of coordination and public support for the operations from the RSF leadership show that the crimes committed in Al-Fashir and its surroundings were not random wartime excesses,” mission chair Mohamad Chande Othman said. They “became part of a planned and organized operation bearing the hallmarks of genocide,” he added.

The final version of the report was handed to Sudan’s government, which has not commented so far. The RSF also did not respond to the mission’s requests for a meeting with its leadership, the report said. The group had previously denied such accusations.

The RSF and Sudan’s army did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Sudan’s civil war has raged since April 2023 after a power struggle erupted between the heads of the regular army and the RSF. According to U.N. figures cited in the report, the fighting has killed more than 43,000 people and forced about 14 million from their homes, with the organization describing the situation as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

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Source: PAP