Children were not collateral damage—often they were deliberately targeted
In the besieged Sudanese city of el-Fasher, eighteen months of systematic violence by the Rapid Support Forces has left a documented record of murder, sexual slavery, ethnic cleansing, and the deliberate targeting of children — crimes that Amnesty International now places before the world as evidence of humanity's capacity for organized cruelty. The report, built from over two hundred survivor testimonies and satellite imagery, arrives not as a revelation of chaos but as proof of intent. Sudan's civil war, now in its third year, has displaced fourteen million people and killed hundreds of thousands, yet el-Fasher stands as a particular wound — a place where the question of accountability has become inseparable from the question of conscience.
- In just three days of assault on el-Fasher, the United Nations documented more than six thousand deaths — a pace of killing that strips the word 'conflict' of any pretense of ambiguity.
- Children were not caught in crossfire but deliberately hunted: killed, raped, abducted, and conscripted into armed groups on a scale Amnesty's secretary general calls massive and intentional.
- The RSF's campaign followed ethnic lines, with Arab fighters targeting non-Arab communities — particularly the Zaghawa — using language and violence designed to reduce people to subordination or eliminate them entirely.
- The RSF has acknowledged some violations while dismissing the documented scale as exaggeration, leaving a growing body of video evidence, satellite imagery, and survivor testimony without formal accountability.
- Amnesty has named specific commanders, demanded a ceasefire, called for an international protection force, and urged an end to external support fueling the war — but the mechanisms to enforce any of it remain absent.
In el-Fasher, a city in Sudan's western Darfur region, the Rapid Support Forces spent eighteen months conducting what Amnesty International now describes as a systematic campaign of crimes against humanity. The report, released this week and built from interviews with more than two hundred survivors alongside satellite imagery and video analysis, documents murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery, forced displacement, and the deliberate targeting of children — not as the byproducts of war, but as its instruments.
The RSF, a paramilitary force that broke from Sudan's regular army in a power struggle now three years old, turned its attention to el-Fasher after being pushed from the capital, Khartoum, in early 2025. The siege that followed was devastating in its speed: the United Nations recorded more than six thousand deaths in the first three days of assault alone. Children were killed, injured, raped, abducted, and forced into armed groups. A seventeen-year-old survivor from a town south of el-Fasher described being beaten and shot while eight of his cousins — four of them boys between eleven and seventeen — were killed around him. He now walks on crutches.
The violence tracked ethnic identity. RSF fighters pursued non-Arab communities with particular intensity, and the Zaghawa group, which formed much of the city's defense, bore the brunt of targeted killings. Amnesty reviewed eighty-nine videos showing patterns of mass killing and sexual violence used as a weapon of war. The United Nations had already said the situation bore the hallmarks of genocide.
The RSF has acknowledged some violations but disputes the scale of what is documented. Both it and Sudan's regular armed forces deny war crimes accusations. Yet the evidence continues to accumulate. Beyond el-Fasher, Sudan's war has displaced fourteen million people and left twenty-eight million facing acute hunger. Amnesty has identified specific RSF commanders for accountability and is calling for an immediate ceasefire, an international protection force, and an end to the external support sustaining the conflict. Whether the conscience of the international community will translate that call into action remains the open and urgent question.
In the western Sudanese city of el-Fasher, paramilitaries from the Rapid Support Forces spent eighteen months laying siege to a place that would become one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of Sudan's three-year civil war. What Amnesty International documented in a report released this week was not the fog of conflict but a systematic campaign: murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery, forced displacement, and the deliberate targeting of children. The evidence, gathered from interviews with more than two hundred survivors and analysis of open-source video and satellite imagery, points to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing carried out with clear intent.
The RSF, a paramilitary force that broke from Sudan's regular army in a power struggle that has now killed hundreds of thousands, shifted its focus westward after being pushed out of the capital, Khartoum, in March of last year. El-Fasher became a prize worth taking, and the siege became a weapon. In just the first three days of the assault, the United Nations documented more than six thousand deaths. The violence did not spare children. They were not incidental casualties of a larger conflict but, according to Amnesty's secretary general Agnès Callamard, deliberately targeted on a massive scale—killed, injured, raped, abducted, and forced into armed groups.
The targeting followed ethnic lines. Arab fighters from the RSF pursued members of non-Arab communities with language that reduced them to servitude. The Zaghawa ethnic group, which made up much of the city's defending forces, became a focus of the violence, but RSF fighters did not distinguish between combatants and civilians. A seventeen-year-old boy attacked in Abu Zerega, a town south of el-Fasher, described being beaten with sticks and the stock of an AK-47 before being shot in the leg. Eight of his cousins were killed in the same attack, four of them boys between eleven and seventeen years old. He now walks on crutches. This was not an isolated incident. Amnesty researchers reviewed eighty-nine videos and extensive satellite imagery that showed patterns of mass killing, sexual violence used as a weapon, and the systematic elimination of people based on their identity.
The RSF leadership has acknowledged that some violations occurred and claimed to be investigating them, but insisted that the scale of documented atrocities is being exaggerated. The organization has not directly responded to the Amnesty report. Both the RSF and Sudan's regular armed forces have faced accusations of war crimes, which they deny. Yet the weight of evidence is accumulating. The United Nations said early last year that what was happening in el-Fasher bore the hallmarks of genocide.
The human toll extends far beyond el-Fasher. Sudan's civil war has forced more than fourteen million people from their homes and left twenty-eight million facing acute hunger. Sexual violence against men, women, and children has become a deliberate instrument of war. Amnesty has identified specific RSF commanders responsible for violations of international law and is calling for accountability. The organization is also demanding an immediate ceasefire, the urgent deployment of an international force to protect civilians, and an end to the international support that keeps this conflict burning. What happened in el-Fasher, Callamard said, is a stain on the conscience of humanity. The question now is whether that conscience will demand justice.
Notable Quotes
Children were not collateral damage of this violence—often, they were deliberately targeted and have suffered immensely. They have been killed, injured, raped, abducted, and forcibly recruited on a massive scale.— Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International secretary general
It is a stain on the conscience of humanity.— Agnès Callamard, on the atrocities in el-Fasher
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does Amnesty focus on el-Fasher specifically when the entire war has been brutal?
Because el-Fasher is where the pattern becomes undeniable. An eighteen-month siege, documented killings in the thousands, systematic targeting by ethnic identity—it's not random violence, it's organized. That distinction matters for proving intent.
The RSF says the scale is exaggerated. How confident is Amnesty in these numbers?
They interviewed over two hundred survivors directly and reviewed eighty-nine videos plus satellite imagery. That's not speculation. A seventeen-year-old boy lost eight cousins in one attack. Those are the kinds of specific, verifiable accounts that form the foundation.
Why target children so deliberately? What's the strategic purpose?
It's not strategy in a military sense. It's about eliminating a group—ethnic cleansing. Children represent the future of the Zaghawa and other non-Arab communities. When you kill them, you're trying to erase the group itself.
The RSF says it's investigating violations. Could that lead somewhere?
Possibly, but Amnesty has already identified specific commanders. Without external pressure and accountability mechanisms, internal investigations rarely produce justice. That's why they're calling for international intervention.
What does "hallmarks of genocide" mean if they're not calling it genocide outright?
It means the evidence points that direction—systematic killing based on identity, intent to destroy a group—but genocide requires a specific legal threshold. Amnesty is saying the facts may meet it, but that's for courts to decide.
Fourteen million displaced, twenty-eight million hungry. How does el-Fasher fit into that larger crisis?
It's a microcosm. What happened there—the displacement, the violence, the targeting—is happening across Darfur and beyond. El-Fasher just has the most detailed documentation.