Keypoints:
- RSF arrests troops over El-Fasher abuses
- UN reports ‘credible’ executions, ethnic attacks
- Violence spreads from Darfur to Kordofan
SUDAN’S Rapid Support Forces (RSF) say they have arrested several of their own fighters accused of committing atrocities during the capture of El-Fasher, the last army-held city in western Darfur. The announcement came as a senior United Nations official warned that ‘the horror is continuing’ across Darfur and into neighbouring Kordofan.
The RSF seized El-Fasher on Sunday after an 18-month siege that left residents starving and neighbourhoods in ruins. The fall of the city, once the army’s final stronghold in the west, marked a decisive turn in Sudan’s civil war, which has raged since April 2023 between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces.
Satellite imagery taken the day El-Fasher fell showed smoke rising from fires near the city’s airport. Eyewitnesses told AFP, cited by France24, that RSF fighters unleashed widespread violence — executing civilians, looting homes and shooting people as they fled. Survivors who escaped to the nearby town of Tawila described children being killed before their parents’ eyes and families robbed along the roads.
Fighter seen in execution videos detained
In a statement late Thursday, the RSF said it had detained several fighters implicated in ‘violations that occurred during the liberation of El-Fasher’. Among them was a man identified as Abu Lulu, who appeared in several TikTok videos carrying out summary executions.
One clip verified by AFP shows him shooting unarmed men at close range. Another depicts him standing among armed men celebrating near dozens of bodies and burnt vehicles. The RSF later released a video claiming to show Abu Lulu in custody in a North Darfur prison.
‘Abu Lulu is arrested and will be brought to a fair trial according to the law,’ an RSF spokesperson said in the video, adding that internal investigations had begun.
The group reiterated its commitment to ‘the law, rules of conduct and military discipline during wartime’. Yet despite the arrests, footage has continued to circulate showing men in RSF uniforms carrying out summary executions around El-Fasher, which remains cut off from communication with the outside world.
UN confirms ‘credible’ reports of massacres
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council on Thursday there were ‘credible reports of widespread executions’ following the RSF’s takeover of the city.
‘We cannot hear the screams, but the horror is continuing,’ Fletcher said, describing scenes of rape, mutilation and killings carried out ‘with impunity’. He added that while the RSF claimed to be investigating the incidents, its commitment to accountability remained in doubt given the ‘appalling news’ emerging from Darfur.
US-based Sudanese poet Emtithal Mahmoud told AFP she recognised her cousin, Nadifa, among the bodies shown in an RSF-linked video.
According to the UN’s migration agency, more than 36,000 people have fled El-Fasher since its fall, while about 177,000 civilians remain trapped without aid. The UN also reported that 1,750 people crossed from the Darfur town of Tina into Chad this week.
Analysts doubt RSF accountability
Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair told AFP she was sceptical that the RSF’s arrests would end the violence.
‘We expect these atrocities to continue, particularly against non-Arab groups,’ she said, pointing to the Zaghawa, Fur, Berti and Masalit communities often targeted in previous RSF operations.
The RSF evolved from the Janjaweed militias, accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago. In 2023, the force was blamed for the massacre of up to 15,000 members of the Masalit tribe in El-Geneina, West Darfur.
Khair warned that these attacks reflect ‘a disturbing repetition of old ethnic tensions’, now intensified by control over resources and political power.
Violence spreads into Kordofan
Fletcher also warned the Security Council that atrocities were spreading beyond Darfur into Kordofan. Between Sunday and Wednesday, more than 35,000 people fled North Kordofan after the RSF overran several towns, including Bara — a key route to Darfur.
UN assistant secretary-general for Africa Martha Pobee said there were reports of ‘large-scale atrocities’ in Bara, including ethnically motivated reprisals against people accused of collaborating with the army.
At least 50 civilians were killed in recent days, including five Red Crescent volunteers, according to UN figures.
Khair predicted that Kordofan was ‘clearly going to be the next area of military escalation’.
On Thursday, the RSF accused the army of launching a drone attack on a school in eastern North Kordofan, claiming dozens of students and teachers were killed or injured. The army denied the allegation, and AFP could not independently verify the incident.
Sudan’s fractured frontlines
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes during the 18-month conflict. The United States has previously determined that the RSF committed genocide in Darfur.
With El-Fasher’s fall, the RSF now controls all five state capitals in Darfur, effectively dividing Sudan along an east-west axis. The paramilitary group has also declared a rival administration in Darfur, while the army retains control of the north, east and central regions.
As the UN urges justice and accountability, analysts warn that Sudan’s war has entered a darker phase — one marked by old grievances, ethnic violence and the absence of meaningful oversight. For civilians trapped in Darfur and Kordofan, the RSF’s promises of justice remain little more than words.
