U.N. says Darfur attacks by Rapid Support Forces killed at least 89 civilians in 10 days

# U.N. says Darfur attacks by Rapid Support Forces killed at least 89 civilians in 10 days

Event date: August 22, 2025.

The United Nations rights office said Friday that attacks blamed on Sudan's Rapid Support Forces killed at least 89 civilians in 10 days in Darfur, including 16 people who were summarily executed. The office said the toll, gathered from incidents between August 11 and August 20, is likely an undercount.

Jeremy Laurence, the spokesman for U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, described the violence in el-Fasher and the nearby Abu Shouk displacement camp as brutal and said it heightened concern about ethnically motivated attacks. The statement said at least 57 people were killed in attacks on August 11 and another 32 between August 16 and August 20.

Among the dead, the U.N. said, were 16 civilians, mostly from the African Zaghawa tribe, who were executed in Abu Shouk. Another civilian was killed in el-Fasher after fighters asked his tribe affiliation and then shot him, according to the account relayed at the Geneva briefing. The U.N. said these patterns amount to serious violations of international humanitarian law.

El-Fasher is the capital of North Darfur and the last major military stronghold in the wide Darfur region. According to the AP report, the RSF has bombarded the city for more than a year and imposed a complete siege last month around hundreds of thousands of residents. The group has repeatedly attacked Abu Shouk and Zamzam, another displacement camp that was once Sudan's largest, before a major RSF attack in April emptied both camps almost entirely.

The AP account also places the violence in the wider history of Sudan's war. The RSF emerged from the Janjaweed militias mobilized during the early 2000s Darfur conflict under former President Omar al-Bashir. Those militias were accused of mass killings, rape and other atrocities, and U.N. officials say ethnic killings and sexual violence continue to mark the current war.

Sudan's war began in April 2023 after tensions between the army and the RSF erupted into open fighting in Khartoum and across the country. The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, forced more than 14 million from their homes and left families in some areas eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive famine.

The International Criminal Court is already investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity tied to the conflict. Against that backdrop, the new U.N. warning is likely to intensify scrutiny on Darfur at a time when aid access remains limited and civilians in and around el-Fasher are trapped between siege conditions, hunger and attack.

For residents of the region, the announcement was less a new revelation than a formal confirmation of what many have been living through: a widening campaign of killing around camps and neighborhoods that had already been battered by months of siege.