Amnesty International accuses Sudan’s RSF of crimes against humanity in El Fasher

Amnesty International has accused Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of committing crimes against humanity and carrying out ethnic cleansing during their military campaign in and around El Fasher between 2024 and 2025.

In a report released on Wednesday, the rights organisation said RSF forces conducted systematic attacks against civilian communities in North Darfur during their offensive to seize the city.

The report calls on the international community to take urgent action to prevent further atrocities and hold those responsible accountable.

Sudan has been engulfed in conflict since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, a war that the United Nations says has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions.

Earlier this year, an independent UN fact-finding mission concluded that the RSF’s 2025 offensive on El Fasher bore “the hallmarks of genocide.”

Drawing on interviews with 247 victims and witnesses conducted in North Darfur between early 2024 and October 2025, Amnesty International said the RSF committed crimes against humanity and pursued what it described as a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

According to the report, the attacks primarily targeted communities around El Fasher inhabited by members of the Zaghawa ethnic group.

Amnesty also documented widespread abuses against children, including killings, abductions, forced recruitment and sexual violence.

“This is a stain on the conscience of humanity,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard said in a statement issued alongside the report.

Speaking in Nairobi, Callamard accused the RSF of committing genocide, persecuting civilians on the basis of ethnicity and gender, and carrying out ethnic cleansing.

She warned that similar crimes would continue unless decisive action is taken to stop the group.

The report also states that RSF fighters deliberately burned homes after residents had fled, arguing that the destruction appeared intended to make affected areas uninhabitable, a pattern Amnesty said was consistent with ethnic cleansing.

The Rapid Support Forces had not immediately responded to Amnesty International’s findings.