UN Investigation Finds ‘Hallmarks of Genocide’ in Sudan

Atrocities committed by paramilitaries in Sudan bear the “hallmarks of genocide”, an investigation has found.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched “a final offensive on the besieged city” of El Fasher, in the county’s western Darfur region, on the night of 24 October 2025, the UN report says, “unleashing a wave of intense violence that claimed the lives of thousands of individuals and displaced tens of thousands more in the span of a mere seven days.”

The population of El Fasher, the last remaining stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces, had already endured 18 months of “gruelling siege and starvation” tactics amounting to a “systematic chokehold” on the city, the UN said. 

The report – based on two field missions to interview people who fled El Fasher during the final offensive – makes it clear that the violence was systematic and ethnically motivated – claims the RSF has previously denied.

“The scale, coordination, 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,” Mohamad Chande Othman, chair of the fact-finding mission on Sudan, told Reuters. “They formed part of a planned and organised operation that bears the defining characteristics of genocide.”

The RSF’s “exterminatory rhetoric” and other violations show its intent to destroy the non-Arab Zaghawa and Fur communities in whole or in part, the report says.

“Witnesses heard the Rapid Support Forces saying, ‘Is there anyone Zaghawa among you? If we find Zaghawa, we will kill them all’,” it states, adding that other survivors heard RSF fighters make “explicit threats to ‘clean’ the city.”

People interviewed recounted point-blank executions of civilians, as well as bodies of men, women and children filling the roads, investigators said.

The RSF did not respond to the UN mission’s request to meet with its leadership, the report stated. The final draft of the report was shared with the Government of Sudan, but it did not respond.