In the heart of Sudan, a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding on a scale that has shocked the world and drawn rare, unified condemnation from international bodies. The city of El Fasher in North Darfur, once a haven for hundreds of thousands displaced by conflict, has become the epicenter of atrocities attributed to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), whose brutal campaign has left a trail of death, terror, and mass displacement in its wake.
On December 18, 2025, the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) released a harrowing report detailing the onslaught that the RSF unleashed upon Zamzam camp for displaced persons near El Fasher. According to the report, the RSF, bolstered by allied Arab militias, launched a three-day offensive from April 11 to 13, 2025, involving heavy artillery shelling and ground incursions. The toll was staggering: over 1,000 civilians killed, with 319 executed summarily in their homes, markets, schools, health facilities, and even mosques. Volker Türk, the UN rights chief, did not mince words. "Such deliberate killing of civilians or persons hors de combat may constitute the war crime of murder… The world must not sit back and watch as such cruelty becomes entrenched," he insisted, as reported by the United Nations.
The violence did not spare the most vulnerable. Zamzam camp, which at the time sheltered approximately 500,000 people uprooted by Sudan's war, became a scene of unspeakable horror. The OHCHR report highlighted that at least 104 individuals—75 women, 26 girls, and three boys, predominantly from the Zaghawa ethnic tribe—were subjected to gruesome sexual violence, including rape, gang rape, and sexual slavery. "Sexual violence appears to have been deliberately used to inflict terror on the community," Türk emphasized in a video message, underscoring the systematic nature of these crimes.
Testimonies collected by UN investigators painted a chilling picture of the events. Survivors recounted how RSF fighters stormed mosques and religious schools, killing indiscriminately. One community leader described how two RSF gunmen fired through a window into a room where he and ten others were hiding, killing eight. Another woman, searching for her missing teenage son after the assault, found the camp deserted, with only animal life wandering among scattered corpses. "The camp was empty. I saw scattered dead bodies on the roads. Only chicken, donkeys and sheep were wandering around," she recalled, as cited by OHCHR.
The scale of the violence in El Fasher and its surroundings was further corroborated by a December 16, 2025, report from the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL). The lab assessed with high confidence that the RSF engaged in "widespread and systematic mass killing" after breaching the city’s defenses on October 26, 2025. Satellite imagery revealed at least 150 clusters consistent with human remains, many of which showed signs of disturbed earth, burning, and even reddish discoloration—evidence of blood or bodily fluids—visible from space. In the Daraja Oula neighborhood alone, 52 body piles were observed, the aftermath of door-to-door executions. Another 83 clusters were spotted outside the city, matching footage of RSF troops hunting down and executing fleeing civilians. The HRL report noted, "This pattern of body disposal and destruction is ongoing."
UNICEF had reported that, as of October 23, more than 260,000 civilians, including 130,000 children, had been trapped in El Fasher for over 16 months, cut off from food, water, and healthcare. Following the RSF takeover, civilian life in the city appeared to vanish. Abnormal vegetation growth in markets, deserted water points, and the absence of people and vehicles all pointed to a city emptied of its inhabitants, either by death, flight, or forced disappearance.
The violence has not been limited to Darfur. Across Sudan, the conflict between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), triggered by the breakdown of a fragile transition to civilian rule in April 2023, has escalated. As of December 19, 2025, fighting had intensified in the Kordofans region, with over 50,000 people displaced since late October alone, according to the UN migration agency, IOM. Mohamed Refaat, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Sudan, described the desperate situation: "People in Sudan are not moving by choice, they are running just to find safety." He warned that El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, was "one or two steps from being the next city under attack," potentially impacting over half a million people.
In Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, violence has reached new heights. Six Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers were killed in drone attacks, and tens of thousands are at risk of displacement if fighting continues. Many of those fleeing are women and children, arriving in the eastern regions of White Nile and Gedaref, often with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Humanitarian access remains perilous, with aid agencies hamstrung by insecurity and severe funding cuts. IOM reported a loss of $83 million in resources this year, forcing painful choices about which lives can be saved. "Because of those cuts, we have to choose which lives we can save and which support we have to stop," Refaat explained to journalists in Geneva.
The international response has been swift and unequivocal. On December 19, 2025, the European Union issued its strongest condemnation yet of the RSF, accusing the group of "deliberate attacks on civilians, ethnically motivated killings, widespread sexual and gender-based violence, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and systematic obstruction of humanitarian aid." The EU's Foreign Affairs Council imposed asset freezes and travel bans on Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, the RSF’s deputy commander and brother of its leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly known as Hemedti). The EU also reaffirmed its support for ongoing investigations by the International Criminal Court and the UN fact-finding mission, underscoring that "accountability is central to ending the conflict."
As the violence continues, the numbers are staggering: since April 2023, more than 25,000 people have been killed and over 14 million displaced across Sudan, according to the European Union. The EU has called for an immediate ceasefire, expanded arms embargoes, and unrestricted humanitarian access, warning that the situation risks spiraling even further out of control.
Despite the mounting evidence and international outrage, the suffering in Sudan shows little sign of abating. The world now faces a stark choice—stand by and watch as entire communities are erased, or act decisively to halt the violence and bring those responsible to justice. For the survivors of El Fasher and the countless others across Sudan, the stakes could not be higher.
