A United Nations investigative mission has determined that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) violent capture of el-Fasher exhibits distinct characteristics of genocide, according to a comprehensive report released this week.
The October 2025 seizure of North Darfur’s capital city resulted in what investigators described as ‘three days of absolute horror’ that included systematic atrocities against civilian populations. The UN mission, led by chairman Mohamad Chande Othman, conducted 320 interviews with witnesses and victims from el-Fasher and surrounding areas, supplemented by investigative visits to refugee populations in Chad and South Sudan.
The report presents disturbing evidence of coordinated violence, noting that ‘the scale, coordination, and public endorsement of the operation by senior RSF leadership demonstrate that the crimes committed in and around el-Fasher were not random excesses of war.’ Testimony gathered describes indiscriminate shootings and mass executions that left roads littered with bodies of men, women, and children.
Particularly alarming findings detail widespread sexual violence specifically targeting women and girls from non-Arab communities, with the Zaghawa ethnic group identified as primary victims. The report documents cases of females between seven and seventy years old, including pregnant women, subjected to systematic rape ‘immediately following the takeover of el-Fasher.’
The conflict in Sudan erupted in April 2023 when tensions over a transitional political plan that would have integrated the RSF into the regular military escalated into full-scale violence. The war has since claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced 13 million people, and divided the nation between the internationally recognized government in Khartoum and the RSF’s rival administration based in Nyala, Darfur.
The UN investigation calls for accountability, demanding that perpetrators be brought to justice for their crimes. The report concludes that the systematic nature of the atrocities, their targeting of specific ethnic groups, and the leadership coordination involved all point toward acts of genocide under international law.