Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said they have arrested several fighters accused of abuses during the capture of el-Fasher, as the United Nations warned that “horror is continuing” across the Darfur region.
The RSF, locked in a brutal war with Sudan’s army since April 2023, seized el-Fasher – the army’s final stronghold in Darfur – on Sunday, ending an 18-month siege that left much of the city in ruins.
In a statement late Thursday, the RSF said it had detained several of its own members accused of “violations that occurred during the liberation” of the city, including a fighter identified as Abu Lulu, who appeared in several TikTok videos committing executions.
One video verified by Agence France-Presse (AFP) shows Abu Lulu shooting unarmed men at close range. Another shows him standing among armed men beside dozens of bodies and burned vehicles. A third clip shows him attempting to force captives to praise army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan.
When they refused, he executed them, saying, “When we came here, we had two choices: death or victory.”
The RSF released a video appearing to show Abu Lulu behind bars in what it claimed to be a North Darfur prison. It said “legal committees” had begun investigations “in preparation for bringing them (the fighters) to justice.”
The group also affirmed its adherence to “the law, rules of conduct and military discipline during wartime.”
El-Fasher has been cut off from all communications since its fall, but survivors who reached the nearby town of Tawila told AFP of mass killings, children shot before their parents, and civilians beaten and robbed as they fled.
Emtithal Mahmoud, a U.S.-based Sudanese poet from El-Fasher, said she recognized her cousin, Nadifa, in a video shared by RSF accounts, lying dead on the ground.
Since Sunday, videos circulating online have shown men in RSF uniforms carrying out summary executions around the city.
More than 36,000 people have fled el-Fasher since Sunday, according to the U.N. migration agency, while the fate of about 177,000 civilians still trapped in the city remains unknown.
U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council on Thursday there were “credible reports of widespread executions” after the RSF entered el-Fasher.
“We cannot hear the screams, but ... the horror is continuing,” he said, describing rapes, mutilations and killings carried out with impunity.
Fletcher said the RSF claimed to be investigating but questioned its commitment amid “appalling news” from North Darfur.
RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo earlier vowed accountability for “anyone who has made a mistake,” while an RSF-led coalition alleged many videos were “fabricated” by army-linked outlets.
Satellite imagery analyzed by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab showed clusters in the city “consistent with adult human bodies” and “discoloration” that may indicate “pools of blood,” its director told AFP.
The RSF – descended from the Janjaweed militias accused of atrocities in Darfur two decades ago – and the army both face war crimes accusations.
The United States has previously determined the RSF committed genocide in Darfur.
El-Fasher’s fall gives the RSF full control of all five state capitals in Darfur, effectively splitting Sudan along an east-west axis.
The RSF is now entrenched in Darfur with a self-declared rival government and is pushing into the neighboring Kordofan region, where the U.N. says similar atrocities have occurred.
The army holds Sudan’s north, east and center.
Peace efforts led by Washington and regional powers have so far failed.
Egypt, Sudan’s northern neighbor, backs the army alongside Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Iran.
The United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, is accused by the U.N. of arming the RSF – allegations Abu Dhabi denies.
