Nairobi, July 01 (Darfur24)
Amnesty International on Wednesday accused three senior Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanders of overseeing crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing during the siege and capture of El Fasher in North Darfur last year, calling for their investigation and prosecution.
Amnesty International launched its report, City Under Siege, Children Under Fire: Rapid Support Forces’ Crimes Against Humanity in North Darfur, at an event in Nairobi, Kenya, where Secretary General Agnès Callamard said the RSF carried out a widespread and systematic campaign of attacks against civilians during its assault on El Fasher.
The report identifies Major General Gedo Hamdan Ahmed Mohamed, known as “Abu Shok,” Lieutenant Colonel Abbas Khater Bakhit, and commander Al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, known as “Abu Lulu,” as bearing responsibility for serious violations of international law. Amnesty said they should be investigated and prosecuted where sufficient admissible evidence exists.
Based on interviews with 247 people, including 208 survivors, as well as satellite imagery and analysis of videos and other documentary evidence, Amnesty concluded that the RSF committed crimes against humanity including murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement, persecution, imprisonment and forcible transfer during the siege and capture of the city.
The organization also accused the RSF of deliberately targeting children and carrying out attacks against non-Arab communities that amounted to ethnic cleansing. It said the destruction of towns and villages between December 2024 and March 2025, including Abu Zerega, was consistent with a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Amnesty said it verified videos showing Abu Lulu executing civilians, while other footage showed Abu Shok participating in interrogations and torture at the Mina al-Bari detention facility. The report also accuses Abbas Khater Bakhit of ordering the torture of detainees.
“The war in Sudan is a war on civilians,” Callamard said, adding that children “were not collateral damage” but were often deliberately targeted through killings, rape, abduction and forced recruitment.
She called for an immediate nationwide ceasefire and the deployment of an international protection force under the United Nations to protect civilians. She also urged governments to strengthen support for accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court and UN and African Union investigative bodies.
The RSF has not publicly responded to the report. Amnesty said it shared its findings with RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, before publication but had received no reply.
The report comes months after a UN fact-finding mission concluded that the RSF’s capture of El Fasher bore the “hallmarks of genocide” against non-Arab communities. According to Amnesty, the assault on the city followed an 18-month siege that culminated in October 2025 with widespread killings and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians.