UN experts say destruction by Sudan's rebels in el-Fasher in October bears 'hallmarks of genocide'

GENEVA (AP) — A "campaign of destruction" in October by Sudanese paramilitary forces against non-Arab communities in and near a city in the western region of Darfur shows “hallmarks of genocide,” U.N.-backed human rights experts said Thursday, a dramatic finding in the country's devastating war.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — known as RSF and at war with the Sudanese military — carried out mass killings and other atrocities in the city of el-Fasher after an 18-month siege during which they imposed conditions “calculated to bring about the physical destruction" of non-Arab communities, in particular the Zaghawa and the Fur communities, the independent fact-finding mission on Sudan reported.

U.N. officials say several thousand civilians were killed in the RSF takeover of el-Fasher, the Sudanese army’s only remaining stronghold in the Darfur. Only 40% of the city’s 260,000 residents managed to flee the onslaught alive, thousands of whom were wounded, the officials said. The fate of the rest remains unknown.

Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital of Khartoum and spread to other regions, including Darfur. So far, the war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to U.N. figures, but aid groups say the true number could be many times higher.

The RSF overran el-Fasher last October and rampaged through the city in an offensive marked by widespread atrocities that included mass killings, sexual violence, torture and abductions for ransom, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.

They killed more than 6,000 people between Oct. 25 and Oct. 27, the office said. Ahead of the attack, the paramilitary forces ran riot in the Abu Shouk displacement camp, just outside el-Fasher, and killed at least 300 people in two days, it said.

The RSF did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment. The group's commander, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has previously acknowledged abuses by his fighters, but disputed the scale of atrocities.

The United States on Thursday sanctioned three RSF commanders for their actions in el-Fasher, and called on the group to commit to an immediate ceasefire, the U.S. Treasury Department said.

"We will not tolerate this ongoing campaign of terror and senseless killing in Sudan,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Without a swift end, Sudan’s civil war risks further destabilizing the region, creating conditions for terrorist groups to grow and threaten the safety and interests of the United States.”

The U.N. report cited a systematic pattern of ethnically targeted killings, sexual violence and destruction and public statements explicitly calling for the elimination of non-Arab communities.

An international convention known colloquially as the “Genocide Convention” — adopted in 1948, three years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust — sets out five criteria to assess whether genocide has taken place. They include killing or seriously harming members of a group, preventing births or forcibly transferring children from the group, and inflicting measures to bring about the “physical destruction” of the group.

The fact-finding team said it found at least three of those five were met: Killing members of a protected ethnic group; causing serious bodily and mental harm; and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part.

Under the convention, a genocide determination could be made even if only one of the five were met. The United Nations says a determination of genocide must be made by an international tribunal.

The head of the fact-finding team, Mohamed Chande Othman, a former chief justice of Tanzania, said the RSF operations were not “random excesses of war” but a planned and organized operation that bore the characteristics of genocide.

El-Fasher's residents were "physically exhausted, malnourished, and in part unable to flee, leaving them defenseless against the extreme violence that followed,” the team's report said. “Thousands of persons, particularly the Zaghawa, were killed, raped or disappeared during three days of absolute horror.”

The report documented cases of survivors quoting RSF fighters as saying things like: “Is there anyone Zaghawa among you? If we find Zaghawa, we will kill them all” and “We want to eliminate anything black from Darfur.”

It also pointed to “selective targeting” of Zaghawa and Fur women and girls, “while women perceived as Arab were often spared."

Mona Rishmawi, a member of the fact-finding team, told a news conference in Geneva on Thursday that the team's conclusion was based on evidence of mass killings, patterns of ethnic targeting and statements by perpetrators expressing intent to eliminate and destroy the targeted communities.

“We reached the point of genocide now,” Rishmawi told reporters, adding that her team expects the parties in Sudan’s war to get the message that “enough is enough.”

At a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sudan later Thursday, U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo said that the “horrific events" in el-Fasher "were preventable.”

While el-Fasher was under siege, she said U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk repeatedly warned of the risk of mass atrocities, “but the warnings were not heeded.”

Türk has now also alerted the global community to the possibility of similar crimes in Sudan's Kordofan region, where the military and the RSF are fighting, DiCarlo said, urging action now to prevent a repeat of atrocities.

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called the report's findings “truly horrific” and took them to the Security Council, saying she wanted to “ensure that the voices of women of Sudan who have endured so much are heard by the world.”

“Today’s report describes the most unimaginable and chilling horrors,” she said, citing the case of a woman asked by an RSF soldier how far she was in her pregnancy. “When she responded seven months, he fired seven bullets into her abdomen killing her,“ Cooper told the council.

“This is the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st Century, a war that has left 33 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, 14 million people forced to flee their homes, famine stalking millions of malnourished children,” Cooper said.

The fact-finding team was created in 2023 by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the U.N.'s leading human rights body, which has 47 member nations.

The team called for accountability for perpetrators and warned that protection of civilians is needed “more than ever” because the conflict is expanding to other regions in Sudan.

Warring parties on both sides have been accused of violating international law. But most of the atrocities have been blamed on the RSF: The Biden administration, in one of its last decisions, said the paramilitary force committed genocide in Darfur.

U.N. experts and rights groups say the RSF has had the backing of the United Arab Emirates over the course of the war, allegations that the UAE denies.

The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed militias, notorious for atrocities they committed in the early 2000s in a ruthless campaign in Darfur that killed some 300,000 people and drove 2.7 million from their homes. Sudan's former autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir is still sought by the International Criminal Court for genocide and other crimes committed at that time.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.

FILE - A Sudanese child, who fled el-Fasher city with family after Sudan's paramilitary forces attacked the western Darfur region, receives treatment at a camp in Tawila, Sudan, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abaker, File)

FILE - Sudanese families displaced from El-Fasher reach out as aid workers distribute food supplies at the newly established El-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, Sudan's Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)

FILE - Al Shafiea Abdallah Holy, an injured Sudanese man who fled el-Fasher city after Sudan's paramilitary forces attacked the western Darfur region, receives medical care at a camp in Tawila, Sudan, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abaker, File)

FILE - Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, center, greets the crowd during a military-backed tribes' rally in the Nile River State of Sudan, July 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Hjaj, File)

MURCHISON FALLS NATIONAL PARK, Uganda (AP) — On a cold morning in Uganda’s largest national park, rangers chat and sing to lift their spirits ahead of the start of a daunting wildlife project considered critical to conservation: moving the Nubian giraffe to a new home.

Rangers at Murchison Falls National Park on Tuesday began to translocate 12 endangered Nubian giraffes, Earth's tallest land mammal, 106 kilometers (65 miles) to Ajai Wildlife Reserve. The project, expected to last a couple of days, is intended to preserve the species’ population, enhance biodiversity and diversify tourism opportunities.

An estimated 40% of Uganda’s oil deposits are in the Murchison Falls area and within the park. In recent months, there have been increased oil drilling activities including heavy machinery movement through the national park despite years of opposition from environmentalists.

Uganda is pushing to produce its first oil from the area. In June 2023, TotalEnergies officially began drilling for oil in the Tilenga project area within the park.

Patrick Atimnedi, the Uganda Wildlife Authority assistant commissioner for veterinary services who led Tuesday's giraffe translocation, said establishing new animal populations in other protected areas will reduce pressure on the current habitat if there is significant damage from drilling.

Uganda wants to expand the range of the critically endangered giraffes because of oil and gas activities, tourism development, climate change, bush encroachment and invasive species, he said.

"This is shrinking the habitat of wildlife here, but especially giraffes,” Atimnedi said of the animals that can grow up to 6 meters (20 feet) tall and weigh up to 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds).

“So having a seed population somewhere about 100 kilometers (62 miles) away from here within the same conservation area, the same zone, is the right conservation decision to make,” he said.

After a final briefing from Atimnedi, the exercise kicked off as officials directed three giraffes into waiting trucks, where tree branches were mounted for the giraffes to chew during the journey.

At Ajai Wildlife Reserve, a dozen rangers awaited their arrival. The animals could not wait to get off the trucks and into their new 166-square-kilometer (64-square-mile) home. The reserve once had a diverse wildlife population but was wiped out in the early 1980s because of rampant poaching and prolonged insecurity in the country.

The introduction of the Nubian giraffes to the reserve is part of an ongoing ecological restoration effort. In addition to the giraffes, other wild animals such as southern white rhinos, buffalo, zebras and hundreds of Uganda kobs are being reintroduced.

“The animals are now doing very well and are multiplying. Many are now pregnant. They are spreading all over the reserve, both inside the electric fence and outside the electric fence,” said Wilson Katamigwa, the Ajai Wildlife Reserve senior warden in charge.

Wildlife authorities are optimistic that Ajai, established in 1937, will serve as a new home for their work to increase Uganda's wild animal population despite pressures from human activity and nature that threaten their conservation.

Part of the reserve is being fenced and the number of rangers has increased to protect the animals from poachers. Area communities, which receive a share of the tourism revenues, have been educated about the importance of conservation.

“They are ready to conserve with us, and we are having a good working relationship with the district leadership,” Katamigwa said.

When the giraffe translocation is complete, members of the communities will be invited to the reserve to see the animals, which have been extinct in the area for decades, he said.

“The big dream is that we want to see the economy of this place growing bigger and bigger and for the Madi Okollo district to be included in the money economy using tourism,” Katamigwa said.

As the giraffes walked off the trucks, Moses Ayoti could not hide his excitement about having the animals near his home and the benefits they will bring to the environment.

“The community is aware, the vigilance is high, and I am sure they are going to take care of the animals because they belong to the local community, too,” Ayoti said.

Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) rangers and veterinarians restrain a sedated Nubian giraffe during its translocation from Murchison Falls National Park to Ajai Wildlife Reserve near Arua, northwestern Uganda, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda)

Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) rangers and veterinarians release Nubian giraffes during their translocation from Murchison Falls National Park to Ajai Wildlife Reserve near Arua, northwestern Uganda, Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda)

Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers and veterinarians restrain a sedated Nubian giraffe with its eyes covered by a cloth during translocation from Murchison Falls National Park to Ajai Wildlife Reserve, near Arua, northwestern Uganda, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda)

A truck carrying Nubian giraffes is parked as Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) rangers prepare for their translocation from Murchison Falls National Park to Ajai Wildlife Reserve northwestern Uganda, Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda)

Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers and veterinarians restrain a sedated Nubian giraffe with its eyes covered by a cloth during translocation from Murchison Falls National Park to Ajai Wildlife Reserve, near Arua, northwestern Uganda, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda)