This handout satellite image by Vantor taken on October 26, 2025 and made available on October 31, 2025 shows smoke billowing from fires burning around El-Fasher Airport in El-Fasher. (Photo by Handout / Satellite image ｩ2025 Vantor / AFP)
Geneva: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for a swift, transparent, and thorough investigation into the violations committed in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, Sudan, and for those responsible to be held accountable.
The High Commissioner confirmed Friday that it had received "horrifying accounts of summary executions," mass killings, rape, attacks on humanitarian workers, looting, abductions, and forced displacement, in the context of the Rapid Support Forces’ incursion into the city.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, High Commissioner spokesperson Seif Magango said that communications were cut off and the situation on the ground was chaotic, "making it difficult to obtain firsthand information from inside the city."
He added that the number of civilians killed and those rendered unable to fight during the Rapid Support Forces' attack on the city and its escape routes, as well as in the days following its capture, could reach the hundreds. He noted (according to reports) that patients and wounded individuals were killed inside the Saudi Maternity Hospital and in various buildings located in the First Class and Airport districts, which were being temporarily used as medical centers.
Magano confirmed that the Commission had documented killings and attacks on humanitarian workers and local volunteers supporting vulnerable communities, indicating that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were holding three doctors in El Fasher.
According to UN estimates, approximately 36,000 civilians have fled El Fasher since last Sunday due to the fighting that erupted between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army.
Many of them headed to Tawila, a city that was already sheltering around 650,000 displaced people.
