The United Nations human rights office said on the event date that the Rapid Support Forces had killed at least 782 civilians and wounded more than 1,143 others in el-Fasher since May, as the siege of the North Darfur city deepened.
High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called the situation devastating and urged the RSF to end the siege. The wording was stark because the city’s crisis has moved far beyond ordinary battlefield exchanges: the UN described regular and intensive shelling of residential areas and recurrent air attacks by the Sudanese Armed Forces.
The office said its figures were based in part on interviews with people who had fled the area. That matters because el-Fasher has been increasingly difficult to assess from the ground. When access is blocked, testimony from displaced civilians becomes one of the few ways to build a casualty picture, even though the full scale of the losses may still be underestimated.
The UN also said such attacks on civilians may amount to war crimes. That does not replace a court ruling, but it sets the legal tone for how international investigators view the pattern of violence. Both sides have denied deliberately targeting civilians and have accused each other of doing so in el-Fasher and nearby areas.
The city is strategically important because it is one of the final major footholds for the Sudanese army and its allies in Darfur. If the RSF were to take control, observers fear ethnic retribution similar to what happened in West Darfur last year. That makes el-Fasher not only a military objective but a potential trigger for wider civilian abuse.
The humanitarian picture is already severe. The war between the army and the RSF has displaced more than 12 million people, and aid agencies have struggled to deliver relief. Nearby Zamzam Camp, where experts say famine is occurring among a population of more than half a million, has also come under fire, forcing thousands to flee.
The report said the city had suffered intense attacks in the previous week, including shelling of the main hospital and a drone strike in the city centre that killed at least 38 people. Those details show a siege that is not static but constantly escalating, with hospitals, camps and residential districts all exposed.
The UN’s message was straightforward: the siege must end, and the international community should act to prevent any further large-scale attack. In Sudan’s war, el-Fasher has become a symbol of civilian vulnerability and the limits of outside pressure.
