Thousands Flee El-Fasher as Reports of Mass Killings by RSF Emerge in Sudan

Rabat – The city of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur in western Sudan, is facing a deep humanitarian crisis in the wake of reports of atrocities committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The group has surrounded the city since May 2024, and new reports say thousands of civilians have been killed in recent days.

Across the Arab world, people are using slogans like “El-Fasher drenched in blood” and “Save El-Fasher” to call attention to the tragedy. Rights groups, public figures, and social media users have urged the international community to act and stop the RSF-led siege.

Sudan’s army chief and head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said on Monday that the army had withdrawn from El-Fasher to prevent further “systematic destruction and killing” of civilians.

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry condemned what it called “horrific terrorist crimes” by the RSF. In a statement, the ministry accused the group of carrying out ethnically motivated killings and systematic terror against civilians, including women and children.

It also criticized the international community for staying silent, saying that the “politicization of the Sudanese crisis and the bias of certain states” had helped fuel the massacre in El-Fasher.

Targeting of doctors and ethnic killings

The Sudan Doctors Network reported on Tuesday that six doctors had been kidnapped by the RSF, which demanded a ransom of 100 million Sudanese pounds for each in exchange for their release. The group said targeting medical workers was “a crime that cannot be tolerated,” warning that such acts were aimed at destroying what remains of Darfur’s fragile health system.

On Monday, the same network accused the RSF of committing ethnic cleansing, saying that unarmed civilians were being killed based on their ethnic identity.

The Joint Force of Armed Struggle Movements (JSAMF), a coalition of Darfuri groups, said that more than 2,000 people were killed in El-Fasher on October 26 and 27. The coalition urged the UN Security Council and international legal bodies to classify the RSF as a terrorist organization.

The United Nations said it has received reports of “summary executions of civilians trying to escape what was the last Sudanese military government stronghold of El Fasher – with indications of ethnic motivations for killings – and of former combatants who have put down their weapons, which is prohibited under humanitarian law.”

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk warned that “the risk of further large-scale, ethnically motivated violations and atrocities in El Fasher is mounting by the day.”