Sudan - October 2025

Reports emerged in late October that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied militia were perpetrating mass atrocities in el-Fasher, following their capture of the city from the Sudanese Armed Forces. While information on the alleged atrocities has been limited by a communications blackout in el-Fasher (internet and phone networks were cut off by the RSF when they took over), satellite data and witness testimony indicate the RSF has engaged in systematic, ethnically targeted killings of non-Arab civilians as well as widespread sexual violence, abductions and looting. More than 460 civilians were reportedly killed in an attack on el-Fasher’s only partially functioning hospital. The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court stated that the alleged abuses may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The city had been under siege from the RSF for 18 months, causing acute shortages of food and medicine for its approximately 260,000 inhabitants.             

Sources: The Africa Report, Sudan Tribune, British Broadcasting Corporation,  United Nations, Yale University, World Health Organisation, International Criminal Court, International IDEA