Scores of people killed in Sudan as videos of atrocities by RSF spark global outrage

Scores of people have been killed in the latest spate of violence unleashed by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during their recent capture of the city of el-Fasher in Sudan’s western Darfur region. Videos circulating online show the brutality that has erupted in the region.

One such video, which was circulating online and was later verified by The New York Times, shows a Sudanese paramilitary commander known as Abu Lulu executing an unidentified man. Videos and witness accounts show the trenches filled with bodies, and fighters with the paramilitary force — the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF — hunting down civilians as they flee.

According to Al Jazeera, RSF, which has been fighting Sudan’s military for control of the country, killed at least 1,500 people over the past three days as civilians tried to flee the besieged city. Sudan’s Doctors Network (SDN), the group which have been tracking the civil war in the country, has been describing the latest event as a “ true genocide ”.

“The massacres the world is witnessing today are an extension of what occurred in el-Fasher more than a year and a half ago, when over 14,000 civilians were killed through bombing, starvation, and extrajudicial executions,” the group said.

It maintained that the attacks are being carried out as part of a “deliberate and systematic campaign of killing and extermination”. The statement comes as new evidence of mass killings in the strategic area has emerged from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL). The RSF has been locked in a bloody civil war with Sudan’s army since 2023. The conflict has led to the deaths of tens of thousands and displaced more than 12 million people.

Videos spark global outrage

The disturbing visuals of atrocities in the region have set off global outrage and stoked fears that the region of Darfur is plunging, once again, into a cycle of genocidal violence. Officials soon started to issue statements at the United Nations and in Western capitals on Thursday, condemning the RSF’s recent operation.

Some went on to call for punitive measures against its main foreign backer, the United Arab Emirates. “The situation is simply horrifying,” Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations for Africa, told a Security Council emergency session on Thursday.

“The situation is chaotic. In this context, it is difficult to estimate the number of civilians killed. Despite commitments to protect civilians, the reality is that no one is safe in el-Fasher,” she added. “There is no safe passage for civilians to leave the city.”

Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, congressional leaders renewed calls for a pause on arms sales to the Emirates until it stops arming the paramilitary. In the United Kingdom , the government faced several questions about reports that British-made military equipment was being used by the RSF.

In a response to the mounting outrage, RSF leader Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan shared a video message on social media in which he conceded that his troops had committed some abuses and pledged to hold responsible “any soldier or officer who committed a crime.” The RSF later announced that they had arrested Abu Lulu, the commander who had been filmed shooting the injured man.

However, the group went on to deny what they described as a “shocking allegation” from the World Health Organisation, which said that 460 people had been killed at a hospital in El Fasher on Tuesday. In a statement on Thursday, the RSF said it “categorically denied” those allegations, which it said were part of an “intensive propaganda campaign” with “no connection to reality.”