Imagine being targeted for your ethnicity, your children killed, and your city reduced to rubble. That was the reality for thousands in El Fasher, and a new report says Sudan’s paramilitary RSF is to blame.

A damning new report has accused Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of carrying out ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity during its brutal campaign to seize the city of El Fasher last year, cbinews.tv has learned.

The siege of El Fasher, in Sudan’s western Darfur region, was one of the deadliest chapters in the country’s civil war. According to Amnesty International’s investigation released on Wednesday, RSF fighters were responsible for murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement, forced transfers and the persecution of civilians.

The RSF has not responded to the latest Amnesty findings, but it has previously denied similar allegations.

Sudan has been torn apart by a three-year power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF. The war has already killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than 14 million people. The UN says widespread sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war by both sides. These are accusations both the RSF and SAF reject.

After being pushed out of Khartoum in March last year, the RSF turned its attention to Darfur, aiming to capture El Fasher and expand into Kordofan states. Amnesty says the 18-month siege that followed saw grave human rights abuses.

Researchers reviewed 89 videos and satellite imagery from North Darfur. They concluded many victims were deliberately targeted because of their ethnicity. Amnesty says Arab RSF fighters went after non-Arab communities, often hurling slurs like “slave” or “servant” as they attacked.

The city’s defenders were largely from the Zaghawa ethnic group, and civilians from that community were targeted alongside fighters, the report states. Witnesses described mass killings, sexual violence, and the deliberate targeting of children.

One teenage boy, who now walks with crutches, told Amnesty that eight of his cousins, including four boys aged between 11 and 17, were killed in a single attack.

“The world was warned of the horrors that civilians in El Fasher confronted as the RSF laid siege to the city,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general.

Amnesty says it has identified RSF commanders responsible for violations of international law and is calling for accountability. RSF leadership has admitted some violations took place and claims to be investigating, but insists the scale is being exaggerated.

The findings add to growing evidence of atrocities in El Fasher. Early last year, the UN said the assault on the city bore the “hallmarks of genocide.” Its report found more than 6,000 people were killed in just three days of fighting.

International pressure is mounting on those backing the conflict to pull out. Aid agencies warn the war has triggered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with over 14 million people displaced and 28 million facing acute hunger.

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