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Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces carried out mass killings in the Darfur region and tried to hide the crimes using mass graves, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Monday.
Speaking to the UN Security Council, ICC deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan said the “assessment of the office of the prosecutor that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed during the RSF takeover of the city of El-Fasher in October.
Khan said investigators found signs of mass killings and efforts to hide bodies in mass graves.
“Our work has been indicative of mass killing events and attempts to conceal crimes through the establishment of mass graves,” Khan said.
She said the ICC reviewed audio and video recordings, satellite images and witness accounts.
Sudan has been at war since April 2023, with fighting between the Sudanese army and the RSF.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, forced about 11 million from their homes and caused severe hunger across the country.
El-Fasher was the last major city in Darfur held by the army. After the RSF captured it, reports emerged of killings, sexual violence, kidnappings and looting. Both sides in the war have been accused of abuses.
Khan said ICC-reviewed footage showed RSF fighters detaining civilians, abusing them and carrying out executions.
She said the fighters were also seen celebrating the killings and “desecrating corpses”.
She added that the crimes in El-Fasher are similar to those seen in El-Geneina in West Darfur in 2023, where UN experts said between 10,000 and 15,000 people, mostly from the Massalit ethnic group, were killed.
Khan said a picture was emerging of “appalling organised, widespread mass criminality”.
“It will continue until this conflict and the sense of impunity that fuels it are stopped,” she added.
She also called on Sudanese authorities to cooperate with the ICC and hand over suspects wanted by the court, including former president Omar al-Bashir, former minister Ahmed Haroun, and former defence minister Abdul Raheem Mohammed Hussein.
Khan said Haroun’s arrest should be a priority.
Haroun is accused of helping recruit the Janjaweed militia, which carried out mass killings in Darfur in the 2000s and later became the RSF.
Haroun escaped from prison in 2023 and has since appeared publicly in support of the army.
