The civil war in Sudan, which started on 15 April 2023, has seen widespread war crimes committed by both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with the RSF being singled out by Human Rights Watch, and the United Kingdom and United States governments for committing genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
The conflict has been marked by heavy indiscriminate shelling, gunfire, and airstrikes on markets and populated residential neighbourhoods, causing a high number of fatalities. Hospitals were targeted during aerial bombings and artillery fire, and medical supplies were looted. These attacks severely impacted Sudan's healthcare system, disrupting medical services and leaving the majority of the hospitals in conflict-affected states out of service. The UN declared Sudan the most dangerous country for humanitarian workers after South Sudan.
In Geneina, West Darfur, the RSF and Arab militias killed more than 15,000 non-Arab people. On 22 July, a Masalit tribal leader claimed that more than 10,000 people had been killed in West Darfur alone, and that 80% of Geneina's residents had fled. Massacres against the Masalit were recorded in towns such as Tawila, Sirba, Ardamata, Kutum, and Misterei, while a mass grave was discovered around Geneina. The UK and US governments, witnesses, and other observers described the violence in the region as tantamount to ethnic cleansing or even genocide, with non-Arab groups such as the Masalit being the primary victims. The RSF and Arab militias are also accused of widespread robberies, looting food meant to feed 4.4 million people, and sexual violence against Sudanese and foreign women, particularly Masalit and non-Arab women. NGOs estimate that the actual figure of sexual violence victims could be as high as 4,400. In March 2024, UNICEF reported that armed men were raping and sexually assaulting children as young as one year old. The UN was urged to start an inquiry, and governments were encouraged to allocate resources to aid survivors.
The RSF and Arab militias in Sudan are also accused of targeted torture and killings of intellectuals, politicians, professionals, and tribal leaders. Notable victims include Adam Zakaria Is'haq, a physician and human rights advocate, and Khamis Abakar, the governor of West Darfur, who was kidnapped, tortured, and executed. The RSF also targeted the families of their opponents, such as Mustafa Tambour's family. The SAF and RSF are accused of threatening, attacking, and killing journalists and activists during the conflict. The Sudanese Journalists Syndicate documented over 40 violations in May 2023 alone. Several journalists were injured or killed, and 13 newspapers ceased operations. Humanitarian workers were also targeted, with 18 killed and many others detained.
The International Criminal Court and Amnesty International are investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war. The SAF accused the RSF of perpetrating these crimes. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (SAF commander) established a committee to investigate these allegations. Several countries proposed a motion to the UN Human Rights Council for an investigation into the atrocities. The UN Human Rights Council voted to adopt a resolution creating a fact-finding committee on these crimes. Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan have called for measures to protect civilians.
On 11 July 2025, the International Criminal Court (ICC) reported to the United Nations Security Council that war crimes and crimes against humanity are currently being committed in Sudan's Darfur region, including a severe humanitarian crisis with over 30 million people in need, amid the ongoing conflict.
On 25 January 2026, WHO published a report on the situation in terms of public health, stating that around 33 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, with 21 million more facing a food insecurity.
Background and casualties
Since April 2023, there has been a civil war in Sudan between the two main factions of the country's military government. The conflict involves the internationally recognized government of Sudan led by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan; against the rival Government of Peace and Unity led by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, commanded by General Hemedti (Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo Musa). Smaller armed groups have also taken part on both sides, most notably Sudan Liberation Movement splinter groups, the Tamazuj militia, and the Darfur Joint Protection Force.
Fighting began on 15 April 2023 following a power struggle within the transitional administration established after the 2021 coup. As of 6 July 2026, the conflict has forcibly displaced over 14 million people, with 4.5 million fleeing the country as refugees, making it one of the largest displacement crises in recent history. The conflict has also seen heavy influence from foreign powers, especially Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates, while also experiencing effects from the spillover of neighboring conflicts in the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad and Libya.
The current war erupted amid tensions regarding the integration of the RSF into the Sudanese Army following the 2021 coup. Initial RSF attacks targeted government sites in the capital, Khartoum, and other cities. The conflict began with the Battle of Khartoum, and fighting then spread to the Darfur region. The capital region was divided between the two factions, and al-Burhan relocated his government to Port Sudan. International efforts, including the 2023 Jeddah Declaration, failed to stop the fighting, while various rebel groups entered the war: the SPLM–North attacked the SAF in the south; the Tamazuj movement joined the RSF; and the SAF gained support from factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement and Justice and Equality Movement.
By late 2023, the RSF controlled most of Darfur and advanced on Khartoum, taking over most of the capital, Kordofan and Gezira. The SAF regained momentum in 2024, making gains in Omdurman and retaking Khartoum by March 2025. Despite negotiations, no lasting ceasefire has been reached, and the war continues with severe humanitarian consequences and regional implications.
The city of El Fasher, the SAF's last stronghold in Darfur, was besieged by the RSF from April 2024. On 26 October 2025, the city fell to the RSF, with the city and neighboring villages suffering what some experts called a genocidal massacre inflicting between 60,000 and 70,000 deaths by one estimate. Satellite estimates have been as high as 150,000 dead, making it the largest massacre of the 21st century.
Sudan faces one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, with widespread famine and 25 million people suffering severe food insecurity. Four million children are acutely malnourished, including 770,000 at imminent risk of death, and famine has been confirmed in several regions. The country faces extreme shortages of water, medicine and aid access, widespread hospital closures, disease outbreaks, mass displacement, looting of humanitarian supplies, and the near-collapse of education and infrastructure, leaving half the population in urgent need. The total death toll of the war comprises fatalities from violence, starvation and disease; thousands remain missing or were killed in targeted massacres primarily attributed to the RSF and allied militias. 61,000 people have died in Khartoum State alone, of whom 26,000 were direct victims of violence. Sexual violence has been widespread. UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs Tom Fletcher described Darfur as the "epicenter of human suffering in the world".
There have been calls for more aid, legal protections for humanitarian workers, refugee support and a halt to international arms supplies to the RSF, particularly from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The US, UK, EU and Canada imposed sanctions on entities linked to both factions for ceasefire violations and human rights abuses. Despite denials, the UAE has been found to violate these sanctions by shipping Chinese weaponry to the RSF, which largely funds its operations through gold exports to the UAE. Many civilians in Darfur have been killed as part of the Masalit genocide. On 7 January 2025, the United States government formally determined that the RSF and its allied militias committed acts of genocide.
On 12 June 2023, the Sudan Doctors Syndicate said at least 959 civilians had been killed and 4,750 others were injured. On 15 August, the UN said that at least 435 children had been killed in the conflict. Doctors on the ground warned that stated figures do not include all casualties as people could not reach hospitals due to difficulties in movement. A spokesperson for the Sudanese Red Crescent was quoted as saying that the number of casualties "was not small".
According to BBC, The Guardian, CNN, PBS NewsHour, and Amnesty International widespread war crimes were committed in Sudan by both sides.
Massacres
Darfur region
In Geneina, West Darfur, ethnic clashes that began in the last week of April had killed at least 1,100 people, while on 20 June the Sultanate of Dar Masalit claimed that more than 5,000 people were killed and about 8,000 were wounded in the city by the RSF and Janjaweed. On 22 July, a Masalit tribal leader claimed that more than 10,000 people had been killed in West Darfur alone, and that 80% of Geneina's residents had fled. Massacres were recorded in towns such as Tawila and Misterei, while a mass grave was discovered in Geneina containing the bodies of 87 people killed in clashes.
Geneina massacre
On 13 July 2023, a UN investigation discovered a mass grave of 87 individuals, all Masalit civilians, near Geneina, allegedly killed by the RSF between 13 and 21 June. The Darfur Bar Association reported the next day that the refugee camps of Kreinik and Sirba were under siege by the RSF. All makeshift shelters and refugee camps had been burned down by 20 June. Numerous villages, neighbourhoods, and cultural sites in and around Geneina were destroyed, including the city's Grand Market and the palace of the Masalit Sultanate.
On 22 June 2023, the Dar Masalit Sultanate also released a statement claiming more than 5,000 civilians had been killed between 24 April and 24 June, the majority of whom were non-Arabs. The Sultanate called the situation a "genocide", and footage emerged of corpses being used as barricades, and the bodies of men, women, and children strewn across the streets. Refugees from West Darfur speaking to Al Jazeera in late June corroborated these claims, adding that similar situations unfolded in the West Darfur towns of Misteri, Konga Haraza, and Tendelti between April and June.
The RSF also attacked civilians in June on the road between Geneina and the Sudanese-Chadian border. Many of these killings were at RSF checkpoints, where a pregnant woman was killed by militiamen for not having enough money for passage. A Geneina refugee stated that "the road along El Geneina and Adré has a lot of bodies, nobody can count them". Another source claimed over 350 people were killed on the road alone.
While Masalit people were often the target of Arab militiamen, refugees claimed the militiamen shot at anyone black. Prominent civil society members, including lawyers, humanitarian officials, and more, were targeted by militias and the RSF after and during the fall of the city. The Darfur Bar Association called the ethnic cleansing "a full-scale genocide". The United Nations released a statement on 24 June deploring "wanton killings", but did not mention perpetrators.
On 12 August 2023, a representative of the Masalit tribe, El Farsha Saleh Arbab Suleiman, gave a press conference in Port Sudan in which he accused the RSF of seeking to conceal evidence of crimes committed in Geneina by burying bodies in hidden locations and forcing the Sudanese Red Crescent Society (SRCS) to hand over bodies. The Coordination of Resistance Committees confirmed the reports of the mass graves and said that, as of 16 August, several bodies were still on the roofs of houses or inside buildings. More than 1,000 bodies were found in 30 more mass graves on August 15. Thirteen more mass graves were discovered on September 14 in Geneina.
In an interview with AllAfrica, Masalit civilians in Adré recounted their experiences in the city, including the killing of a large group of displaced Masalit civilians within the city. Masalit Sultan Saad Bahar el-Deen stated around 10,000 people from his community were killed by the RSF. In CNN interviews on August 16, which included photos collected while the massacres were occurring, the last count of killed civilians was 884, and after June 9, it became uncountable, and that the town was a "ghost town". Civilians also stated that young Masalit children were massacred by the RSF.
Photos from the massacre showed several bodies in a pile in an abandoned and destroyed road in Geneina. A civilian stated that "bodies littered the street from Geneina Teaching Hospital to the southern parts of the city." Civilians who fled Geneina in July stated many bodies had been dumped in ponds in the area of Maragibir, a town west of Geneina. They stated that some of these bodies appeared to have been dead for months and that two groups of tribes had been killed or "practically exterminated" by the RSF, those being the Masalit people and the Burgo tribes. Others added that the RSF would use volunteers and civilians to take these bodies down, especially in the northern suburbs of the city, and provide bulldozers and trucks to bury the corpses.
Misterei massacre
Prior to the Misterei attack, a group of 300 RSF fighters and allied tribes surrounded the town on the night of May 27, with the exceptions of the south and west, where the fighters entered the town. The fighters came from the Awlad Rashid, Misseriya, and Awlad Janoob tribes, led by Mohamed Zain Taj Eldien and Hamid Yousef Mustafa. Some of the assailants came from the Mima and Bargo ethnic groups. The attackers arrived in twelve Land Cruisers, eight of which were RSF-owned, four of which were private. Other fighters rode on around 150 horses and 140 motorcycles. Around 90 Sudanese Alliance militants, a signatory of the Juba Agreement, intervened in the town, led by Cpt. Elteybe Abdulla Ahmed. Residents were fearful following the surrounding of the town, but there was "no way out".
The first clashes began at Shorrong mountain right after sunrise, when Janjaweed launched an offensive from the west. Later offensives came from the north and south. The Janjaweed came in waves, according to a veteran of the attacks, and many of the self-defence groups were spread out across and around the town in groups of 7 to 15. The Masalit self-defence groups quickly fell to the Janjaweed. Battles between the Sudanese Alliance and the Janjaweed lasted for three and a half hours, during which civilians stated the Arab fighters went house to house, killing darker-skinned Masalit and shouting "Kill the slave, kill the slave!"
Wounded civilians were brought to the Atik mosque, although Janjaweed stormed the place and shot at the wounded and those attending to them. After killing several people, Arab fighters cheered "We killed the zorga! (a slur for black people)." The Janjaweed also looted houses, farms, and shops, before burning down many neighbourhoods. The Misterei market was completely looted and torched. Satellite imagery taken on June 3 showed the entire town burnt down.