The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has carried out “a coordinated campaign of destruction” against non-Arab communities in and around the Sudanese city of el-Fasher, the hallmarks of which point to genocide, United Nations-backed experts say.

El-Fasher was the last stronghold of the Sudanese army in the sprawling western region of Darfur until it fell to the RSF in late October. The two sides have been fighting a civil war since April 2023.

In a report released on Thursday, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan said RSF fighters were responsible for atrocities after laying siege to el-Fasher for 18 months and imposed conditions “calculated to bring about the physical destruction” of non-Arab communities, in particular the Zaghawa and the Fur communities.

“The scale, coordination, and public endorsement of the operation by senior RSF leadership demonstrate that the crimes committed in and around el-Fasher were not random excesses of war,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, the chairman of the mission.

“They formed part of a planned and organised operation that bears the defining characteristics of genocide.”

Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide refers to any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: killing members of the group, causing its members serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent births in the group and forcibly transferring its children to another group.

Under the 1948 convention, a genocide assessment could be made even if only one of the five criteria was met.

The fact-finding mission, which was mandated by members of the UN Human Rights Council, said it found at least three of those five were met in the alleged actions of the RSF.

According to the report, they included 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.

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

The mission’s report documented acts directed specifically against protected ethnic groups, accompanied by “exterminatory rhetoric”, and it accused the RSF of targeting individuals based on their ethnicity, gender and perceived political affiliation.

“RSF fighters openly stated their intention to target and eliminate non-Arab communities,” the report said, citing accounts of “explicit threats to ‘clean’ the city”.

“Survivors cited them as saying: ‘Is there anyone Zaghawa among you? If we find Zaghawa, we will kill them all. … We want to eliminate anything Black from Darfur.'”

It said the alleged violations indicated the RSF intent to destroy the Zaghawa and Fur communities in whole or in part.

The report also stated that girls and women aged seven to 70, including pregnant women, were raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence, including whippings, beatings and forced nudity.

It quoted survivors reporting that “numerous” women were raped and recounting point-blank killings of civilians in homes, on streets and in open areas or while trying to flee el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State.

“They described individuals being gunned down in the streets, trenches and public buildings where they were hiding, while bodies of men, women and children filled the roads,” it stated.

There was no immediate comment by the RSF, which has previously denied such accusations.

After publication of the report, the United States Department of the Treasury announced it was imposing sanctions on three RSF commanders, accusing the group of perpetrating “a horrific campaign of ethnic killings, torture, starvation, and sexual violence” during the siege and capture of el-Fasher.

Among those targeted with sanctions were an RSF brigadier general who filmed himself killing unarmed civilians as well as a major general and RSF field commander, the Treasury Department said.

“The United States calls on the Rapid Support Forces to commit to a humanitarian ceasefire immediately. We will not tolerate this ongoing campaign of terror and senseless killing in Sudan,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

Reporting from Khartoum, Global News Insight’s Hiba Morgan said the UN report corroborated what she has repeatedly been told by people escaping from el-Fasher “whether in the capital, Khartoum, in displacement camps in the northern parts of the country or in neighbouring Chad”.

Morgan said people had told her that if they were “presumed to be from the Arab tribes”, they were not targeted. “In fact, they were given assistance,” she said. However, those from non-Arab tribes in Darfur were targeted.

“They would be assaulted. The men would be killed, and the women would be sexually assaulted and raped,” Morgan said.

Caroline Bouvard, Sudan country director with the NGO Solidarites International, told Global News Insight that there were “very few people” in el-Fasher but those who remained had been “regrouped” by the RSF into “gathering sites”.

“We know that there are people coming back there. We hope that they’re coming back [of] their own volition, but we are not 100 percent sure of that,” she said. “Those who are in el-Fasher are lacking pretty much everything right now, but the numbers are quite limited compared to those who are in villages all around el-Fasher and obviously in Tawila,” she said.

Bouvard said the NGO had heard “some terrible tales” even before the fall of el-Fasher. “The people who were arriving in Tawila often gave accounts of violence and rapes and basically human trafficking. This is something that has been happening all along the road in between el-Fasher and Tawila and other places,” she said.

Sudan descended into conflict nearly three years ago when a rivalry between its army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the commander of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, exploded into all-out war.

Since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed while millions have been forced from their homes. Both sides have been accused of war crimes.

The RSF was formed out of tribal “Janjaweed” militias, which became a state-backed group that was used as a counterrebel force during the Darfur war, which began in 2003. About 300,000 people died in combat as well as from famine and disease brought on by the conflict.