A United Nations fact-finding mission has concluded that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allies committed genocide in Al-Fashir, North Darfur, by conducting a campaign marked by massacres, abductions of women and girls, gang rapes and the deliberate imposition of starvation, according to a report published Wednesday.
According to the investigation's findings, these atrocities were perpetrated during the prolonged siege of the city, which was captured last year by the Sudanese Forces (SFR) as part of the civil war that has pitted them against the Sudanese army for over three years. Investigators believe these acts were part of a deliberate policy and constitute genocide.
The report also states that the RSF and its allies committed the war crime of starvation by obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid, maintaining a prolonged siege of the city, and targeting food production systems. Investigators also warn of the risk of similar atrocities occurring in the city of Al-Obeid.
The testimonies gathered by the mission describe extremely brutal violence. Survivors reported being raped in rooms where the bodies of recently killed civilians, including members of their own families, were still lying.
The Rapid Support Forces have rejected these accusations. Since the beginning of the conflict, they have denied committing such atrocities, claiming that these accounts were fabricated by their adversaries, while in turn accusing their enemies of similar crimes.
This new United Nations report comes as the civil war in Sudan continues to cause a major humanitarian catastrophe. The fighting has displaced millions of people and exacerbated the food crisis in several parts of the country, while calls from the international community for a cessation of hostilities have so far gone unheeded.
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