Khartoum: Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of committing crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during their campaign to seize El Fasher in North Darfur, urging an immediate ceasefire and deployment of an international force to protect civilians.
According to Anadolu Agency, in a new report, the rights group documented killings, torture, rape, sexual slavery, forced displacement, imprisonment, enslavement, extermination, and persecution committed against civilians in and around El Fasher between early 2024 and October 2025. Amnesty Secretary General Agn¨s Callamard emphasized the grave impact on civilians, stating, "The world was warned of the horrors that civilians in El Fasher confronted as the RSF laid siege to the city. It is a stain on the conscience of humanity."
The report highlighted the deliberate targeting of children, who have suffered immensely through killings, injuries, rape, abductions, and forced recruitment on a large scale. Amnesty detailed the RSF's siege of El Fasher from May 2024 to October 2025, which restricted food and humanitarian aid while subjecting the city to daily shelling. This siege led to famine conditions, forcing residents to consume ambaz, a peanut oil byproduct typically used as animal feed.
On October 26, 2025, the RSF launched its final offensive on El Fasher. Civilians attempting to escape encountered a 57-kilometer (35-mile) network of berms, where hundreds were executed, and many others were tortured or detained. Amnesty's report included testimonies from 70 survivors of the assault, nearly all of whom witnessed executions, rape, torture, or hostage-taking, with one survivor reporting seeing more than 1,000 bodies.
The rights group also documented mass killings at the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher, stating that the attack on the protected medical facility constituted a war crime. Amnesty sent a letter to RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo on June 10 detailing its findings but had received no response by the time the report was published.
Amnesty called for a nationwide ceasefire, deployment of an independent and adequately resourced international protection force, stronger accountability mechanisms, and continued support for investigations by the International Criminal Court and UN- and African Union-backed fact-finding missions. Local and international institutions reported that the RSF seized control of El Fasher on October 26, 2025, amid accusations of massacres against civilians and warnings that the development could deepen Sudan's geographic fragmentation.
The conflict in Sudan, which began in April 2023 over plans to integrate the RSF into the military, has triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and displacing nearly 13 million people.