At the end of October last year, the RSF captured the city – the last remaining stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the Darfur region in the country's west – killing thousands of people and raping them during three days of terror, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission to Sudan said.
The report states that this was followed by an 18-month siege, where the RSF imposed living conditions leading to the physical destruction of non-Arab communities, particularly Zaghawa and Far.
The UN mission said it had found evidence that the RSF pursued a pattern of coordinated and repeated targeting of individuals on the basis of ethnicity, gender and perceived political affiliation, including mass killings, rape and torture, as well as creating conditions of life conducive to the physical destruction of the group – core elements of the crime of genocide under international law.
A final draft of the report was shared with the Sudanese government but received no response, while RSF did not respond to the UN mission's request to meet with its leadership, the report said. The RSF and SAF did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
In the past, RSF has denied such abuse – saying that the accounts were created by its enemies and making counter-allegations against them.
Mohammed Chande Othman, chairman of the fact-finding mission on Sudan, said, “The scale, coordination and public support of the operation by senior RSF leadership shows that the crimes committed in and around al-Fashir were not accidental excesses of war.”
“They formed part of a planned and organized operation that reflects the defining characteristics of genocide,” he said.
The report said that before its takeover the population of al-Fashir consisted primarily of the Zaghawa, a non-Arab community, while displacement camps around the area included the Fur community as well as the Burti, Masalit and Tama.
“Destructive Rhetoric”
“Survivors describe explicit threats to 'clean up' the city,” the report said. As well as attacking displacement camps, communal kitchens and medical centers with drones and heavy weapons, the RSF also carried out killings, looting, beatings and sexual violence in al-Fashir, the report said.
The report said RSF's “destructive rhetoric” and other violations indicated its intention to completely or partially destroy the Zaghawa and Fur communities.
“Witnesses heard Rapid Support Forces saying, 'Are there any Zaghawa among you? If we find Zaghawa, we will kill them all,'” the report said.
Reports said survivors described killings of civilians, as well as bodies of men, women and children filling the streets.
The report said women and girls aged between 7 and 70 from non-Arab communities, particularly Zaghawa, were raped and subjected to other acts of sexual violence, including flogging and forced nudity.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said that the international reaction to the report and the situation in Sudan should be forceful and a ceasefire should be urged.
“The findings of this UN report are truly appalling – atrocities, including systematic starvation, torture, killings, rape and deliberate ethnic targeting, occurred on the most horrific scale during the Rapid Support Forces siege of al-Fashir,” he said in a statement.
The UN mission was ordered by members of the Human Rights Council to immediately investigate violations and abuses under international law in and around Al-Fashir, following support from countries including Britain.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; additional reporting by James Williams in London and Nafisa Eltahir in Cairo; editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)