By Brian Kiprono - Reporter
Sudan, 1 July 2026 - Children were deliberately targeted, women subjected to widespread sexual violence and entire communities driven from their homes during the Rapid Support Forces' (RSF) campaign to seize El Fasher in Sudan's North Darfur, according to a new report by Amnesty International.
The human rights organisation says the abuses amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, calling for an immediate nationwide ceasefire and the deployment of an international protection force to safeguard civilians.
The report, City Under Siege, Children Under Fire: Rapid Support Forces' Crimes Against Humanity in North Darfur, documents alleged atrocities committed between early 2024 and October 2025 as fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) devastated the region.
Based on interviews with 247 people, including 208 survivors and witnesses, as well as satellite imagery and verified videos, Amnesty says civilians were killed, tortured, raped, forcibly displaced and unlawfully detained during the offensive.
"The war in Sudan is a war on civilians," Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard said.
"The world was warned of the horrors that civilians in El Fasher confronted as the RSF laid siege to the city. It is a stain on the conscience of humanity."
The report says children were among the worst affected.
"Children were not collateral damage of this violence – often, they were deliberately targeted and have suffered immensely. They have been killed, injured, raped, abducted, and forcibly recruited on a massive scale," Callamard said.
According to Amnesty, hundreds of thousands of children were displaced, many multiple times, while others were orphaned or recruited into armed groups.
The organisation also alleges that the RSF carried out ethnic cleansing against predominantly Zaghawa communities surrounding El Fasher by burning villages, preventing displaced families from returning and using ethnic slurs linked to slavery during attacks.
One 17-year-old survivor told Amnesty he was shot after being captured while fleeing an attack on his family's farm.
"They tied me up and beat me with sticks and the back of an AK-47. Then one of them approached on a camel and said, 'This is the child of a falangay'... And he just shot me in the leg," he recalled.
Amnesty says the siege of El Fasher also created famine-like conditions after food and humanitarian supplies were blocked from entering the city.
Related articles
Many families reportedly survived on ambaz, a by-product of peanut oil production normally used as animal feed, while women described giving birth in underground shelters and hospitals under bombardment.
The report further documents widespread sexual violence, including the rape of girls as young as 13.
One survivor, identified as Tasneem, said she was abducted after witnessing her father's killing before being repeatedly raped by RSF fighters.
Amnesty also accuses the group of unlawfully detaining civilians in overcrowded shipping containers, where detainees were allegedly tortured, denied food and water, and forced to watch others die from disease and dehydration.
The organisation identified several RSF commanders it says were linked to serious violations of international law and called for criminal investigations.
Amnesty said it wrote to RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo on 10 June outlining its findings but had received no response by the time the report was published.
Calling for urgent international action, Callamard said protecting civilians must become a global priority.
"The international community must move beyond statements of concern and take concrete steps to protect civilians, breaking the cycle of impunity."
The organisation also urged countries to halt arms transfers to all parties involved in the conflict and called on the United Nations Security Council to extend the existing arms embargo on Darfur to the whole of Sudan.
The war in Sudan, which began in April 2023, has triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, displacing millions of people and leaving large parts of the country facing severe food insecurity and collapsing healthcare services.