El Fasher has been under a brutal siege since April – it has been described as a kill zone – as the terrorist organisation Rapid Support Forces push to seize control. The RSF has cut off access to food for hundreds of thousands of civilians, who are trapped and living in desperate conditions. RSF built a wall around the city to prevent civilians from leaving the city and the atrocities. RSF videos on social media show how they enjoy tormenting people in a perverse way.
EL FASHER SEPTEMBER 5: The Sudanese city of El Fasher has been under a brutal siege since April – it has been described as a kill zone – as the terrorist organisation Rapid Support Forces push to seize control.
The RSF has cut off access to food for hundreds of thousands of civilians, who are trapped and living in desperate conditions, enduring relentless shelling and mass starvation.
The report by the UN Fact-Finding Mission accuses the group of “murder, torture, enslavement, rape, sexual slavery, sexual violence, forced displacement and persecution on ethnic, gender and political grounds”.
Rival forces in Sudan are deliberately targeting the civilian population, committing atrocities including war crimes on a large scale. The RSF and its allies used starvation as a method of warfare and deprived civilians of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, medicine and relief supplies – which may amount to the crime against humanity of extermination.
“Our findings leave no room for doubt: civilians are paying the highest price in this war,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the Fact-Finding Mission. “Both sides have deliberately targeted civilians through attacks, summary executions, arbitrary detention, torture, and inhuman treatment in detention facilities, including denial of food, sanitation, and medical care.
What distinguishes RSF is that they also built a wall around the city to prevent civilians from leaving the city and the atrocities. And that they, as their own videos on social media show, seem to enjoy tormenting people in a perverse way.
RSF detention centres were described by survivors as “slaughterhouses” where in some cases, detainees were beaten to death and summarily executed. Some were subjected to forced labour or held for ransom, with families forced to pay for their release.
The RSF has further committed crimes against humanity, including large-scale killings, sexual and gender-based violence, looting, and the destruction of livelihoods—at times rising to persecution and extermination.”
Humanitarian assistance has been obstructed, convoys attacked, and aid workers targeted. Between April 2023 and April 2025, more than 84 Sudanese humanitarian workers were killed, while others were arbitrarily detained.
