International investigation warns of signs of genocide against communities in Sudan

An independent international mission backed by the United Nations documented ethnic killings, sexual violence and enforced disappearances attributed to the Rapid Support Forces, and warned of an ongoing risk of further atrocities.

A human rights mission exposed the modus operandi with which the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out ethnically motivated killings, widespread sexual violence and enforced disappearances during their takeover of El Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region last year. According to the UN, these actions show “hallmarks of genocide” against the Zaghawa and Fur communities, and it maintains that these atrocities could continue.

The report notes that at least three acts linked to genocide were committed, including “killing members of a protected ethnic group; causing serious bodily and mental harm; and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction in whole or in part.”

For his part, the Mission's chair, Mohamed Chande Othman, warns that the scale, coordination and public endorsement by the RSF show that the acts committed in El Fasher were not random excesses of war, but part of a planned and organized operation that can be characterized as genocide.

The UN Mission maintains that a systematic pattern can be seen of ethnically motivated killings, sexual violence and public statements by the RSF calling specifically for the elimination of non-Arab communities, since they acted with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Zaghawa and Fur communities in El Fasher.

The Zaghawa and the Fur are among the largest non-Arab ethnic communities in Sudan's western Darfur region. These two groups have historically suffered discrimination, and many families in and around El Fasher had already been displaced multiple times before the current conflict.

In the absence of effective prevention and accountability, Othman
stated that the Mission warned of the possibility of further genocidal acts, and added that when there is evidence that genocide has been committed, the international community should prevent, protect and ensure that justice is done for the affected populations.

Attacks on civilians and displaced people in Zamzam

In December 2025, new and disturbing details emerged of acts of sexual violence and executions in Sudan's North Darfur region attributed to RSF fighters during their attacks in October of last year.

The report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) details that many civilians were tortured and abducted during an RSF offensive on the nearby Zamzam displacement camp in April 2025.

Sudan has been in a civil war since April 15, 2023, when open fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that emerged from the Janjaweed militias that operated in Darfur in the 2000s.

According to reports by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, the war in Sudan has caused thousands of deaths and one of the most serious displacement crises in the world, with millions of internally displaced people and refugees in neighboring countries such as Chad and South Sudan.

The findings of the OHCHR report are based on UN human rights monitoring. In addition, interviews were conducted with 155 victims and witnesses, including women and children, who fled the Zamzam camp during and after the RSF offensive. 

For his part, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated that the killing of civilians or persons not taking part in hostilities may constitute a war crime and that the world must not stand idly by in the face of such cruelty.

Türk also called for an impartial, thorough and effective investigation into the attack on the Zamzam camp in Sudan, in which all those responsible for serious violations of international law are punished in a fair trial.

The humanitarian situation in Sudan has been described as catastrophic by agencies such as the World Food Programme and UNICEF, with large areas of the country at risk of famine. The combination of urban fighting in Khartoum, ethnic violence in Darfur and the collapse of basic services has created a complex emergency.

The United Nations insists on the need for a sustained ceasefire, unrestricted humanitarian access and an inclusive political process that would allow a civilian transition to resume, in a context in which the conflict threatens to further destabilize the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.

Guillermo Whpei

President of Fundación para la Democracia