The war in Sudan is a war on civilians
In the long and sorrowful history of wars waged against civilians rather than armies, El Fasher now takes its place alongside names the world was too slow to remember. Between mid-2024 and late 2025, Sudan's Rapid Support Forces seized the last armed forces stronghold in Darfur, and Amnesty International has now documented what followed: systematic murder, torture, rape, enslavement, and ethnic cleansing targeting non-Arab communities. The report, built on testimony from 247 survivors and corroborated by satellite imagery, names three commanders and calls the campaign crimes against humanity — adding its voice to a United Nations warning that the siege bore the hallmarks of genocide. The deeper question it raises is one humanity has faced before: whether the careful documentation of atrocity is enough, or whether the world will again mistake bearing witness for taking action.
- After eighteen months of siege, the RSF's capture of El Fasher unleashed massacres that killed tens of thousands of civilians, with children deliberately targeted and entire non-Arab towns and villages destroyed.
- Amnesty International's sweeping report — drawn from 247 interviews, satellite analysis, and documentary evidence — concludes that murder, rape, enslavement, and ethnic persecution were not incidental but coordinated and systematic.
- Three RSF commanders are named as bearing responsibility for serious violations of international law, raising the stakes for accountability in a conflict where impunity has so far gone largely unchallenged.
- Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, countless children orphaned, and communities erased — a human toll that accumulates far beyond what any statistic can hold.
- Amnesty's secretary general has called the abuses 'a stain on the conscience of humanity' and is demanding an immediate ceasefire and the urgent deployment of international protective forces.
- The international community, already warned by a UN fact-finding mission that El Fasher showed hallmarks of genocide, now faces a pointed rebuke: statements of concern have not broken the cycle of impunity, and time is not neutral.
After eighteen months of relentless siege, the Rapid Support Forces captured El Fasher — the last stronghold of Sudan's armed forces in Darfur — and what followed was not a military conclusion but a catastrophe. Amnesty International has now released a report documenting the systematic brutality that accompanied the takeover, concluding that the RSF committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing across the city and surrounding areas.
The allegations are both sweeping and specific. From mid-2024 to late 2025, Amnesty found that RSF fighters carried out murder, torture, rape, enslavement, and sexual slavery as part of a coordinated campaign against civilians, with children deliberately targeted. Entire towns populated by non-Arab ethnic groups — including Abu Zerega — were destroyed. RSF fighters used dehumanizing language against non-Arab communities throughout, and the organization concluded the campaign constituted ethnic persecution. Three commanders were named as responsible for serious violations of international law: Major General Gedo Hamdan Ahmed Mohamed, Lieutenant Colonel Abbas Khater Bakhit, and Al-Fateh Abdullah Idris.
To reach its conclusions, Amnesty interviewed 247 people — 208 of them survivors from El Fasher and the surrounding region — and analyzed satellite imagery and documentary material. The human cost extends far beyond the battlefield: hundreds of thousands displaced, countless children orphaned, families fractured, and entire communities erased.
El Fasher did not emerge from a vacuum. Sudan's civil war began in April 2023 when a power struggle between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo erupted into open fighting in Khartoum. The conflict has since killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. A UN fact-finding mission had already warned in February that the RSF's seizure of El Fasher bore the hallmarks of genocide against non-Arab communities.
Amnesty's secretary general, Agnès Callamard, called the documented abuses 'a stain on the conscience of humanity' and demanded an immediate ceasefire alongside the urgent deployment of an international protective force. Her rebuke to the global community was direct: the world must move beyond statements of concern and break the cycle of impunity. Whether El Fasher becomes a turning point or simply another documented atrocity that the world failed to stop in time remains, for now, an open and urgent question.
In October, after eighteen months of relentless siege, the Rapid Support Forces seized El Fasher, the last remaining stronghold held by Sudan's armed forces in the Darfur region. What followed was not a military victory but a catastrophe. Tens of thousands of people were killed in widespread massacres. Now, in a report released this week, Amnesty International has documented the systematic brutality that accompanied that takeover, concluding that the paramilitary force committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing across the city and surrounding areas.
The allegations are sweeping and specific. Between mid-2024 and late 2025, Amnesty says, the RSF carried out murder, torture, rape, enslavement, and sexual slavery as part of a coordinated campaign against civilians. The organization found that children were deliberately targeted during attacks. The force destroyed entire towns and villages—Abu Zerega among them, a settlement populated by non-Arab ethnic groups—in what Amnesty characterizes as ethnic cleansing. Throughout these operations, RSF fighters used dehumanizing language against non-Arab communities, and the organization concluded that the force committed crimes against humanity based on ethnic persecution.
To reach these conclusions, Amnesty interviewed 247 people, including 208 survivors of the fighting in El Fasher and the surrounding region. Researchers analyzed documentary and video material and studied satellite imagery of North Darfur. The investigation named three RSF commanders whom it held responsible for serious violations of international law: Major General Gedo Hamdan Ahmed Mohamed, known as "Abu Shok"; Lieutenant Colonel Abbas Khater Bakhit; and commander Al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, also known as "Abu Lulu."
The scale of displacement and loss extends far beyond the military campaign itself. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting. Countless children have been orphaned. Those who fled the violence faced death and injury during their escape. The human toll accumulates in ways that statistics alone cannot capture—families fractured, communities erased, entire generations marked by trauma.
This is not an isolated incident in a larger conflict. Sudan's civil war began in April 2023 when a power struggle between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the Sudan armed forces, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo—known as Hemedti—who commands the RSF, erupted into open violence in Khartoum. The fighting has since killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more. In February, an independent fact-finding mission for the United Nations had already warned that the RSF's seizure of El Fasher showed what it called "hallmarks of genocide" against non-Arab communities.
Amnesty's secretary general, Agnès Callamard, framed the findings starkly: "The war in Sudan is a war on civilians." She called the documented abuses "a stain on the conscience of humanity." The organization is now demanding an immediate ceasefire and the urgent deployment of an international force to protect civilians. Callamard added a pointed rebuke to the global community: "The international community must move beyond statements of concern and take concrete steps to protect civilians, breaking the cycle of impunity." The question now is whether those words will translate into action, or whether El Fasher becomes another chapter in a conflict where documentation of atrocity has outpaced the world's willingness to intervene.
Citações Notáveis
The war in Sudan is a war on civilians. 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.— Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International
The international community must move beyond statements of concern and take concrete steps to protect civilians, breaking the cycle of impunity.— Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does Amnesty focus so heavily on the ethnic dimension of these crimes? Couldn't the RSF have committed the same violence against any civilian population?
The pattern matters legally and morally. Amnesty found that the RSF deliberately targeted non-Arab communities, used dehumanizing language specific to ethnicity, and destroyed villages populated by particular ethnic groups. That's not random violence—it's systematic selection. That's what makes it ethnic cleansing and persecution, not just war crimes.
The report names three commanders. What happens with those names now?
That's the gap everyone's watching. Amnesty has documented who gave orders, but there's no international court with jurisdiction over Sudan right now, and the RSF isn't cooperating with any investigation. The names are on record, but enforcement is another matter entirely.
You mentioned that a UN mission already warned of genocide in February. Why is Amnesty's report coming now, months later?
Different organizations, different timelines. The UN mission gave a preliminary assessment. Amnesty did deeper investigative work—interviewing 247 people, analyzing satellite imagery, building a detailed case. It takes time to do that rigorously. But the delay also means the world has had months to do nothing with the earlier warning.
What does "breaking the cycle of impunity" actually mean in practice here?
It means someone has to be held accountable. Right now, the RSF faces no real consequences. An international force could protect civilians from further attacks. A court could prosecute commanders. Sanctions could isolate the leadership. Without any of those things, the incentive to commit atrocities doesn't change.
Is there any indication the international community is moving toward those steps?
Not yet. Callamard's statement is essentially calling them out for inaction. Statements of concern are cheap. Deploying forces, opening investigations, imposing sanctions—those require political will that hasn't materialized.