Militants seize Sudan's El Fasher: mass executions of civilians take place in the city

Hundreds of civilians in the Sudanese city of El Fasher were shot dead after the settlement came under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary forces. This was reported by the British newspaper The Guardian.

Hundreds of patients and staff were killed in the hospital, unarmed men of military age were shot at point-blank range, and civilians who tried to escape were deprived of their belongings. The militants themselves filmed much of the violence.

The media writes that these events resemble a familiar and frightening scenario. In 2023, during the capture of the city of Jenin, RSF members killed up to 15,000 civilians, mostly from the non-Arab Masalit ethnic group. The militants went from house to house, carrying out a bloody massacre.

In April of this year, the RSF killed more than 1,500 civilians in the Zamzam camp in 72 hours. About 500,000 people lived there. An investigation by the newspaper found evidence of ethnically motivated killings, mass shootings and large-scale abductions.

Estimates of the number of deaths since the capture of El Fasher on October 26 reach thousands. The true number is still unknown, according to the newspaper.

Ever since the RSF forces began their siege of the city 18 months ago, NGOs and other war watchers have warned of the impending carnage. The nature of the RSF attacks early in the war, they said, meant that it was not a question of if, but when.

The civil war in Sudan erupted in April 2023, when the power struggle between the armed forces under the command of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo escalated into open hostilities in the capital Khartoum.

Last month, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt agreed on a roadmap for peace in Sudan, including a three-month humanitarian truce followed by a permanent ceasefire. None of this was implemented as the RSF managed to capture El Fasher.

The article says that some experts have said that the killings in El Fasher remind them of the early days of the Rwandan genocide. In 1994, Hutu ethnic extremists killed more than 800,000 people, mostly members of the Tutsi ethnic minority, over the course of about 100 days.

As with previous RSF massacres, most of the evidence of the killings in this city came from the militants themselves, who videotaped the killings and posted them online.

Experts say they are deliberately spreading this footage as part of psychological warfare to demonstrate their power and intimidate opponents and future victims.

The footage, shot at the engineering faculty of El-Fasher University, shows one of the militants shooting a man in the back at close range. Dozens of bodies lie on the floor in pools of blood. The same gunman then shoots another man lying among the bodies with his hand raised.

Several videos filmed by militants in an area northwest of the city show dozens of bodies lying on the floor next to cars burning along a trench.

Satellite images have confirmed reports of massacres. The Yale Humanitarian Research Laboratory analyzed photos of the maternity hospital from Tuesday, October 28, and found clusters of objects consistent with human bodies and "red spots on the ground" that appear to be bloodstains.

The lab also found "evidence pointing to massacres" in the former children's hospital in eastern al-Fasher, which RSF turned into a prison.

Civilians who managed to survive also reported executions by RSF forces.

"They killed six wounded soldiers and civilians in their beds," nurse Nawal Khalil told the newspaper.

The communication cutoff means that only limited information is coming directly from El Fasher, as was the case in previous RSF takeovers. The fate of most of the 260,000 people estimated to still be in the city at the time of its capture is unknown.

• In September 2023, it was reported that the Ukrainian special services allegedly, attacked the RSF, which was supported by the Wagner terrorist group, in Sudan.
• In March 2025, the Sudanese Armed Forces occupied the residence of President in the capital Khartoum. It had been held by RSF fighters for almost two years.