Sudanese women who fled the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region wait beside their belongings to be registered by the UNHCR upon crossing the border from Sudan into Chad. Adre, Chad, July 26, 2023. —REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
After years of credible warning, the latest genocidal campaign against non-Arab civilians in Darfur, Sudan, has begun.
US government leaders from both parties, in the executive and legislative branches, condemned the latest atrocities in the strongest terms.
“We have said this before, and we will say it again—the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias have committed genocide. The RSF has and continues to systematically kill men and boys —even infants—and deliberately target women and children for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence. These crimes are ethnically motivated.” —Ambassador Dorothy Shea, US Deputy Representative to the United Nations
“We are horrified by the ongoing civil war in Sudan, and the genocide in Darfur perpetuated by the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias.” —Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Chairman Jim Risch (R-ID), Senate Foreign Relations Committee, along with Tim Scott (R-SC), Chris Coons (D-DE), Todd Young (R-ID), and Cory Booker (D-NJ)
“This is not war, it is calculated, systematic genocide, perpetrated by the same Janjaweed forces responsible for genocide in Darfur 20 years ago. Those responsible must face real accountability.” —Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) and Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-NY), House Foreign Affairs Committee
For over two years, civilians in El Fasher, Darfur, have been at extreme risk of genocide. The city where an estimated 260,000 people remained was the last area in Sudan’s Darfur region that was not controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a brutal two and a half year war between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). On October 26, when the RSF captured the city of El Fasher, reports immediately emerged of mass atrocities against civilians, frequently accompanied by use of ethnic slurs against non-Arab groups. The latest attacks come more than two years after the RSF’s massacres in West Darfur—crimes the United States government and others have determined and reaffirmed to be genocide.
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has long been concerned that civilians in El Fasher have been at dire risk of genocide. After the United States announced in January 2025 its determination that the RSF had committed genocide, the Museum stressed the importance of urgently deploying additional efforts to protect civilians. Sudanese groups have been sounding the alarm for years, calling for steps to rein in the RSF’s crimes and hold them accountable.
Members of the RSF are gleefully recording and broadcasting their crimes and boasting about the sheer numbers of people they have killed, showing no remorse. Civilians have been shot en masse, pleading for their lives. RSF soldiers have gone house to house, executing civilians. They reportedly killed thousands of people in a matter of days. RSF fighters killed more than 460 people in a hospital, including patients, health workers, and terrified civilians who had sought refuge there. The RSF also killed those trying to flee to safety, and committed crimes of sexual violence against women and girls, adding to their long and well-documented track record of using rape as a weapon of war. The pervasive use of ethnic slurs against non-Arab groups during these crimes shows these are not random attacks.
The continuing flow of reports of mass atrocities from El Fasher is terrifying. Since the latest outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023, both the SAF and the RSF have committed atrocity crimes. The RSF in particular targeted civilians along ethnic lines. For more than two years, the RSF had rampaged through other areas of Darfur, committing ethnically-charged massacres and brutal crimes of sexual violence. They had closed in on El Fasher by mid-2023, laying siege in spring of 2024. The civilians remaining in El Fasher during its fall have been weakened by restrictions that kept food and other necessities from them. The RSF’s crimes of mass killings, sexual violence, and starvation have become its grisly hallmarks. Its actions mirror those of the Janjaweed, the predecessor of the RSF, which committed genocide against civilians in Darfur over two decades ago and were never brought to justice.
Genocide is preventable. The world can still recommit to helping those civilians who remain in the city and those who recently fled elsewhere in Darfur. The RSF’s latest crimes should compel governments to cease funding, arming, and legitimizing the group—and states should use their influence with the RSF to press for an end to the genocide. States can also use the RSF’s documentation of its own crimes to support accountability efforts. Information coming out of El Fasher should be appropriately authenticated and preserved so that perpetrators can be held accountable in the future. Refocusing on accountability can lay the groundwork for a more peaceful future.