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The International Criminal Court’s deputy chief prosecutor has detailed a significant advance in the Darfur investigation during an interview broadcast by the BBC. Nazhat Shameem Khan stated that the court possessed concrete evidence connecting leaders of the Rapid Support Forces to recent massacres in el-Fasher and el-Geneina that amount to crimes against humanity. An earlier briefing to the UN Security Council in January 2026 from the ICC prosecutor had already concluded that both war crimes and crimes against humanity occurred in el-Fasher after its fall to the RSF following an 18-month siege. Khan added that the office would pursue justice although no timeline for charges could be given at this stage.
A report from the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan determined that the RSF offensive in and around el-Fasher in late October 2025 displayed hallmarks of genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups including the Fur and Zaghawa. The mission catalogued coordinated killings, widespread sexual violence, torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances accompanied by dehumanising rhetoric. Its assessment found that at least three prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention had been committed and warned of the risk of further atrocities if the pattern continued unchecked.
The UN Human Rights Office separately placed the toll from the initial assault at more than 6,000 people killed in the first three days, including at least 4,400 inside the city and over 1,600 along escape routes. That February 2026 assessment drew on interviews with more than 140 victims and witnesses as well as satellite imagery and video evidence that corroborated the accounts. The patterns replicated earlier RSF operations in West Darfur in 2023 that a UN panel estimated killed between 10,000 and 15,000 in el-Geneina and surrounding towns.
Council on Foreign Relations data show the civil war that erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces in April 2023 has displaced roughly 11 million people inside Sudan with another four million fleeing as refugees to neighbouring countries by April 2026. Estimates of the cumulative death toll from violence, famine and disease range from 150,000 to several hundred thousand according to analyses by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project and other monitors. The conflict has also produced the world’s largest hunger crisis with 33.7 million people requiring humanitarian assistance this year, the World Food Programme projected.
The International Criminal Court has investigated the Darfur situation for more than 20 years following its referral by the UN Security Council in 2005. Those efforts have produced seven arrests to date including an outstanding warrant for former president Omar al-Bashir and a 20-year prison sentence handed down last year to a former militia leader. Khan made her latest comments after visiting refugee camps in eastern Chad where tens of thousands of el-Fasher survivors had sought safety.
The Rapid Support Forces have rejected the allegations and maintained that they are carrying out their own inquiries into any reported abuses. RSF commander Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo issued that assurance in response to the mounting accusations. The UN fact-finding mission nevertheless identified repeated ethnic targeting across multiple locations that it said indicated a systematic campaign.
