UN mission reports ‘genocide’ in African state

Fighters of the Rapid Support Forces carried out mass killings and violence against non-Arab communities in Al Fashir, according to a new report

Actions by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during the siege and capture of North Darfur’s capital, Al Fashir, show “hallmarks of genocide,” an independent UN fact-finding mission said in a report released on Thursday.

The mission reported evidence of coordinated ethnic targeting, mass killings, widespread sexual violence, torture, and conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of non-Arab communities, particularly the Zaghawa and Fur, around Al Fashir in late October 2025.

The RSF seized Al Fashir – the last major stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the region – on October 26 following an 18-month siege that, the report said, “systematically weakened the targeted population through starvation, deprivation, trauma and confinement.”

Survivors described RSF fighters raping women and girls aged between seven and 70, including pregnant women, the investigators said.

“In one case, a 12-year-old girl was raped by three Rapid Support Forces fighters in front of her mother, shortly after her father had been killed while trying to protect her,” they stated.

READ MORE: Mass devastation in Sudanese city after rebel takeover (VIDEO)

An RSF commander identified as Abu Lulu fired seven bullets into the abdomen of a pregnant woman after asking how far along she was in her pregnancy and she replied, “seven months,” two survivors told the mission.

“The scale, coordination, and public endorsement of the operation by senior RSF leadership demonstrate that the crimes committed in and around Al Fasher were not random excesses of war,” Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the mission, said.

He added that they were part of “a planned and organized operation that bears the defining characteristics of genocide.”

The takeover of Al Fashir followed months of fighting between the RSF and the SAF in the sprawling western region of Darfur, part of a civil war that began in April 2023.

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An earlier UN Human Rights Office report said more than 6,000 people were killed in the intense first days of the RSF assault on Al Fashir.

The US has imposed sanctions on three RSF commanders in response to the independent mission’s findings.

“We will not tolerate this ongoing campaign of terror and senseless killing in Sudan,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

He added that the war risks further destabilizing the region and “creating conditions for terrorist groups to grow and threaten the safety and interests” of the US.