Witnesses: RSF Holds 50,000 Civilians in El Fasher, Burns Bodies

9 November 2025

HRL YaleSPH identifies ongoing possible body disposal activities in and around El Fasher on Nov 6, 2025

November 9, 2025 (EL FASHER) – Eyewitnesses and survivors told Sudan Tribune on Sunday that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are holding more than 50,000 civilians at five main locations inside El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, and preventing them from leaving the city.

The forces also confiscated “Starlink” satellite internet devices and mobile phones in an attempt to isolate the detainees from the outside world.

On Oct. 26, the RSF announced its full control over El Fasher following fierce battles with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and their allied armed movements, which lasted for more than a year.

Shortly after capturing the historic capital of the Darfur region, the forces faced accusations of widespread violations affecting thousands of civilians, including killing, looting, detention, and forced displacement. These crimes met with broad local, regional, and international rejection and condemnation.

Three survivors who managed to escape and reach Tawila, located about 56 km (35 miles) southwest of El Fasher, told Sudan Tribune that “the Rapid Support Forces are holding more than 50,000 people inside El Fasher and preventing them from leaving.”

They said the detention sites include the land port east of the city, the Al-Rashid dormitory and El Fasher University, the Saudi Hospital, and another site in the Awlad al-Reef neighbourhood. Thousands more are gathered in the town of Garni, which the RSF had previously designated as an assembly point for those fleeing the city.

One survivor said the RSF carried out extensive raids in the city’s neighbourhoods over the past few days, especially in the Al-Daraja Al-Oula neighbourhood, which was the last location sheltering thousands of civilians.

Witnesses said the forces confiscated dozens of “Starlink” devices and mobile phones. They also forced detainees, particularly young men, to record videos and voice messages—sent via the phones of RSF elements—to their families, demanding ransom payments for their release, ranging from 5 million to 100 million Sudanese pounds.

A statement issued Sunday by the Sudan Doctors Network accused the RSF of collecting hundreds of bodies from the streets and neighbourhoods of El Fasher in recent days, burying some in mass graves while completely burning others. The statement said this was an attempt to hide evidence of its crimes against civilians.

It noted that the forces flagrantly violated human values and international and religious norms that prohibit the mutilation of corpses and mandate respect for the right of the dead to a dignified burial.

The statement added that the crimes witnessed in El Fasher “exceed the bounds of a humanitarian catastrophe, amounting to a systematic genocide targeting human life and dignity.”

The network warned of the danger of the international community’s continued silence, which the statement described as “shameful silence amounting to complicity.”

It called for immediate action from the international community and the opening of an independent international investigation into the violations committed in El Fasher, stressing that burning bodies or burying them in mass graves will not hide the traces of the crime or absolve the perpetrators of legal accountability.

A recent report from the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at Yale University confirmed, through satellite imagery analysis, that the RSF had used heavy machinery to block the only vital road civilians were using to escape El Fasher towards Garni, tightening the siege on an estimated 200,000 trapped civilians.

Satellite images published by the lab detected “charred objects” and “black smoke” in at least two locations, including the Saudi Hospital, which witnessed a mass massacre. Experts said this activity is consistent with the burning of bodies, a practice that contravenes Islamic burial rites.