Armed Conflict Location and Event Data records placed Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces above every other non-state armed organization worldwide for documented civilian deaths in 2025. ACLED counted more than 4,200 civilian deaths in RSF attacks during the first 11 months of the year.
That figure represented at least 11% of all civilian deaths attributed globally to non-state armed groups, ACLED said. The finding appeared in an article by Ciro Murillo, an associate analysis coordinator at the conflict-data organization, reviewing major global trends. Sudan Horizon reported the analysis rather than presenting a new independent count.
ACLED cautioned that 4,200 was likely a substantial underestimate. It pointed to practices including extrajudicial killing, shelling of residential areas and violence motivated by ethnicity, and said thousands of additional deaths may not have been captured. The organization linked those patterns to renewed allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing targeting non-Arab communities in Darfur. The published report did not include an RSF response to the findings.
The Sudan figure formed part of a broader picture of rising danger to civilians. ACLED recorded more than 185,000 violent incidents around the world in 2025. It estimated that 831 million people—16% of the global population, or roughly one in six—were exposed to conflict during the year.
Violence targeting civilians reached the highest level in five years, with more than 56,000 such incidents documented. Non-state armed groups and violent mobs were responsible for about two-thirds of incidents directed at civilians and 59% of the related deaths, the analysis found. Those proportions distinguish the number of events from the number of people killed and should not be treated as interchangeable measures.
ACLED compiles location- and event-based conflict information from many countries, but its figures reflect incidents that can be documented through its methodology. Its explicit warning about undercounting in Sudan is therefore significant: the ranking compares recorded fatalities and does not establish a complete death toll for every armed group or conflict. It also does not mean the RSF caused 11% of all civilian deaths globally, only of deaths the analysis attributed to non-state armed actors.
The result nevertheless placed the RSF at the top of ACLED's recorded ranking for 2025 and highlighted the exceptional civilian cost of Sudan's war. The supported conclusion is a data-based assessment with defined categories and a stated period, not a judicial determination. Any allegation of genocide or ethnic cleansing remains a separate legal question beyond what the statistics alone can decide. The report contained no response from the RSF to ACLED's findings or methodology.
