RSF chief promises investigation as anger grows over el-Fasher’s killings

The leader of Sudan’s Rapid Support Force (RSF) paramilitary announced an investigation into what he called abuses committed by his soldiers during the capture of al-Fasher.

The announcement by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, came after escalating reports of civilian killings following the capture of the town in the Darfur region by the RSF on Sunday.

The RSF leader spoke after international outrage over reports of mass killings in el-Fasher, apparently documented by his paramilitaries in videos on social media.

A spokesman for the paramilitary group has since denied further allegations by medics that the RSF killed more than 400 people at a hospital in the city on Tuesday.

BBC Check analyzed the footage confirming that they show RSF soldiers executing several unarmed people in the city.

The UN Security Council is holding an emergency meeting on Sudan, which is in its third year of civil war between the army and paramilitaries.

British Foreign Secretary Stephen Doughty said the UK called the meeting because “the scale of suffering is reckless, often based on ethnicity, women and girls face sexual and gender-based violence, and there is mounting evidence of defenseless civilians being executed and tortured”.

He was responding to an urgent question tabled in Parliament by Labor MP and former development minister Annelise Dodds, who said the hospital attack “certainly must be a turning point in this war and the focus of the international community on it”.

RSF also rejected widespread claims that the killings in el-Fasher were ethnically motivated and followed a pattern of Arab paramilitaries targeting non-Arab populations.

Hemedti said he regretted the calamity that had befallen the people of el-Fasher and admitted that there had been wrongdoing by his forces, which would be investigated by a commission that had now arrived in the city.

However, observers say similar promises have been made in the past – in response to allegations of a massacre in the town of El Geneina in Darfur in 2023and alleged atrocities during the group’s control of the central state of Gezira – have not been fulfilled.

The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said it was horrified and deeply shocked according to reports, more than 460 civilians, including patients and their companions, were shot at the last partially functioning hospital in al-Fasher.

Analysts at the Yale Humanities Research Laboratory say satellite images that appear to show clusters of bodies on the hospital grounds corroborate the accounts.

But an RSF spokesman insisted civilians had fled and no hospitals were operating when the paramilitary group seized the town last weekend.

Mohammad Faisal, a spokesman for the UK-based Sudanese Doctors Network, says their teams on the ground have confirmed the attack on the Saudi hospital of al-Fasher, as seen in footage on social media.

“What we’ve seen is actually absolutely appalling,” he told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

“The RSF soldiers entered the wards, killing patients lying in bed, as well as in the outpatient areas, and killed the people waiting to be examined in the clinics – so many people.”

Dr Faisal said it had been a terrible three days for his colleagues, some of whom managed to escape by making the perilous journey to the town of Tawila, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of el-Fasher.

Others were still in el-Fasher, where some 250,000 people, many from the non-Arab community, were trapped during the RSF’s 18-month siege of the city.

He put the number of those killed at the hospital at 450, according to statistics compiled by the Sudanese Doctors Network.

“There were 200 inpatients who were killed, and then there were 250 between the outpatients and the people visiting the hospital,” Dr. Faisal said.

During the 550 days of the siege, the RSF often targeted the hospital, which mainly dealt with cases of severe malnutrition, he said.

“Drone airstrikes and artillery fire” against the facility have increased over the past few months, he added.

About 5,000 people have arrived in Tawila from El-Fasher in recent days, most traumatized and in a very weak condition, often suffering abuse, violence and racketeering along the way, according to Caroline Bouvard of the humanitarian group Solidarités International.

“We have many confirmations of rape and gender-based violence,” she told BBC Newsday, adding that they had also confirmed recent reports of summary executions.

Activists have also stepped up calls for international pressure on the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is widely accused of providing military support to the RSF.

The UAE denies this despite evidence presented in UN reports.

El-Fasher was the army’s last stronghold in the western Darfur region and was captured by the RSF after a long siege marked by starvation and heavy bombardment.

The capture of el-Fasher reinforces the country’s geographical divide, with the RSF now in control of western Sudan and much of neighboring Kordofan in the south, and the army holding the capital, Khartoum, and the central and eastern Red Sea regions.

The two warring rivals were allies – they came to power together in a coup in 2021 – but fell apart over an internationally backed plan to transition to civilian rule.

The African Union Peace and Security Council has called for the opening of humanitarian corridors to allow life-saving aid to the people of el-Fasher and for an immediate investigation to bring those responsible for the atrocities to justice.

“Investigations alone will not help those living in dire conditions in Sudan at the moment, which by the way is the worst humanitarian situation in the world,” Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, chairman of the AU panel on Sudan, told the BBC.

For more than 500 days, the people of el-Fasher and its surroundings have “experienced hell on Earth”, he said.

“We have said time and time again that there can be no military solution to the Sudanese crisis, and that is why we are committed to working with civil and political groups to convene a comprehensive dialogue on Sudan.

“We must now work with the Sudanese to address the root causes of their self-confessed problem of exclusion. The failure to address diversity in Sudan is at the root of the recurring crisis the country has experienced since independence in 1956,” Chambas said.