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Massacres committed by Sudanese paramilitaries during their 18-month siege and subsequent capture of the city of El Fasher last year bear the hallmarks of genocide, according to a report from UN investigators.
The report found that the Rapid Support Forces had engaged in a widespread and co-ordinated pattern of violence that ranged from targeted mass executions, rape and deliberate starvation during the siege and in their takeover of the city in late October.
The report said the RSF acted with “genocidal intent” in and around El Fasher. It is the closest the UN has come to accusing the paramilitary force of genocide in the western region of Darfur since the outbreak of the civil war in Sudan in 2023.
“The scale, co-ordination 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, who chaired the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan.
“They formed part of a planned and organised operation that bears the defining characteristics of genocide.”
The United Arab Emirates is widely seen as the main sponsor of the RSF and has been repeatedly accused of arming its forces, claims UN experts have previously described as “credible”, but Abu Dhabi has repeatedly denied.
The UN report described a planned effort to weaken the inhabitants of El Fasher that left them defenceless against the violence exacted on them after the Sudanese Armed Forces withdrew from what had been their last remaining stronghold in Darfur.
The US, under former president Joe Biden, declared that the RSF was committing genocide in Darfur in January 2025, something the RSF has repeatedly denied.
The RSF and its leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have been fighting against their former allies in the Sudanese Armed Forces ever since the eruption of the civil war in April 2023.
The violence at El Fasher, whose population is mainly ethnic Zaghawa, was among the most shocking chapters in a conflict that has forced more than 15mn people from their homes.
The RSF is mainly made up of Arab paramilitaries and the UN mission found that they openly stated their intention to eliminate non-Arab communities in and around El Fasher.
“‘Is there anyone Zaghawa among you? If we find Zaghawa, we will kill them all,’” one of the hundreds of survivors interviewed for the report recalled hearing.
It is thought that about 100,000 of El Fasher’s 260,000 residents have fled since October. Areas around El Fasher are also home to displaced Fur people, as well as those from the Berti, Masalit and Tama communities.
Investigators found that the widespread rape of women and girls, which often took place in areas where killings had taken place, began immediately after the fall of El Fasher.
El Fasher straddles important crossroads into Sudan and seizing it has been important in giving the RSF greater control over weapons, fuel and other supply flows into Sudan from neighbouring Chad and Libya.
There has been heavy fighting between the SAF and the RSF in Kordofan, in central Sudan, since the fall of El Fasher. The RSF has also engaged in bitter battles with non-Arab militias in areas of Darfur that have remained beyond its grasp.
The International Criminal Court previously indicted several people, including then Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, for genocide against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa in Darfur between 2003 and 2005.
UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said she would be raising the report at the UN Security Council on Thursday.
“The findings of this UN report are truly horrific,” she said, adding that the UK had sanctioned four senior RSF commanders accused of committing atrocities in El Fasher. “These crimes must not go unanswered.”