• ‘If the RSF remains in El-Fasher, they will exterminate every human being in Darfur. This is systematic ethnic cleansing, and everyone is complicit through their silence,’ minister says

KHARTOUM, Sudan/ISTANBUL

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed 300 women and raped 25 others in the first two days of entering El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan, a Sudanese minister said.

“The RSF killed 300 women during the first two days of their entry into El-Fasher,” Minister of State for Social Welfare Salma Ishaq told Anadolu.

She said that women in El-Fasher have been “subjected to sexual assaults, violence, and torture” before being killed.

“All women in the city are exposed to sexual violence and killing. No woman is immune or protected, not even a child,” the minister said, noting that the documented rape cases reached 25.

“There are reports of female journalists being raped, and these crimes have been publicized,” she added.

“Sexual violence targeted even children in front of their mothers, who were then killed. Everyone has seen these scenes in videos,” the minister said.

“Anyone leaving El-Fasher toward Tawila (in North Darfur) is at risk, as the road between the two cities has become a ‘death road’,” Ishaq said, pointing out to physical abuses of women with racist slurs.

“The RSF is using humiliation and rape as a tool against women fleeing from El-Fasher.”

The Sudanese minister said that there are still families in El-Fasher who are being subjected to torture, humiliation and sexual violence.

“What happened in El-Fasher is a systematic act of ethnic cleansing, a major crime in which everyone is complicit through their silence.”

- RSF crimes

Ishaq said the RSF crimes in El-Fasher resemble massacres that took place in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur in 2023.

According to a UN report in January 2024, between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in Geneina, including the state governor, in ethnic-based violence carried out by the RSF and allied militias.

“Of course, what happened in Geneina was not documented as extensively as in El-Fasher. The RSF’s own filming in Geneina was not as abundant as in El-Fasher,” Ishaq said.

The minister stressed that documenting the RSF crimes has become “a part of the rebel group’s weapon to defeat the other side.”

“The pleasure of killing itself gives them a sense of victory. In psychological terms, it represents a sick form of triumph. It is about domination, and domination has been a key weapon for the RSF,” she added.

“If the RSF remains in El-Fasher, they will exterminate every human being in Darfur. This is systematic ethnic cleansing, and everyone is complicit through their silence,” the minister warned.

She reiterated that the silence of the international community would embolden the RSF to carry out more crimes in El-Fasher and throughout the country.

Humanitarian aid

Regarding humanitarian assistance in El-Fasher, Ishaq said the delivered aid in Tawila via some organizations was insufficient to meet the needs of thousands of displaced families in the city.

She noted that governmental bodies are unable to enter the region, as it risks the lives of civilians and other humanitarian workers.

“But we are in contact with all actors and trying to help deliver funds without announcing,” she said.

On Oct. 26, the RSF seized control of El-Fasher and committed “massacres” against civilians, according to local and international organizations, amid warnings that the assault could entrench the geographical partition of Sudan.

On Wednesday, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) admitted that “violations” had occurred by his forces in El-Fasher, claiming that investigation committees had been formed.

With the fall of El-Fasher, the RSF gained control of all five Darfur states in the west, out of Sudan’s 18 states, while the army controls most areas of the remaining 13 states in the south, north, east, and center, including the capital Khartoum.

Darfur makes up about one-fifth of Sudan’s territory, but most of the country’s 50 million people live in army-held areas.

Since April 15, 2023, the Sudanese army and the RSF have been locked in a war that regional and international mediations have failed to end. The conflict has killed 20,000 victims and displaced more than 15 million as refugees and internally displaced persons, according to UN and local reports.