UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan reported Thursday that “acts of genocide” have been committed in El-Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been controlling the Sudanese city since last October.
In a report entitled “Hallmarks of Genocide in El Fasher,” the mission said that genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference to be drawn from the RSF’s systematic conduct in the city of Darfur, in western Sudan.
These acts were marked by “ethnically targeted killings, sexual violence, destruction,” the statement added.
On 26 October 2025, the Rapid Support Forces, who have been in conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces since April 2023, seized control of El-Fasher after an 18-month siege.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimated recently that during the first three days of the RSF attack, at least 4,400 people were killed inside the city, and over 1,600 others were murdered as they attempted to flee. The office further noted that the true toll is undoubtedly far higher.
Following a special session convened in mid-November in response to these events, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution mandating the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan to carry out an investigation.
The investigators concluded that “at least three underlying acts of genocide were committed: killing members of a protected ethnic group; causing serious bodily and mental harm; and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part.” “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,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, Chair of the mission, as cited in the statement.
Nearly three years of deadly conflict have claimed thousands of lives and displaced over 11 million people across Sudan, causing “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” according to the United Nations.
