The Sudanese paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed mass killings in the city of Al Fashar and destroyed evidence, researchers from Yale University wrote in a report published on Tuesday report. The researchers analyzed satellite images of the city in the Darfur region, which fell to RSF rebels on October 26. Shortly after the fall of the city, they recognized 150 “clusters of objects consistent with human remains.”
During the month of November, they saw the clusters change or disappear – 108 of the 150 changed size, and 57 of the 150 were no longer visible over time. According to the researchers, this indicates that RSF has buried or burned bodies. On the satellite images they saw twenty burning objects and signs of “disturbed earth” in eight places. RSF vehicles were seen in 31 of the clusters.
The Yale research team concludes that RSF committed “widespread and systematic mass murder” in Al Fashar after October 26. The killing campaign mainly targeted civilians trying to flee the city and people trying to find shelter in the Daraja Oula neighborhood. The researchers saw 52 of the 150 clusters in that neighborhood. What followed was a “systematic, multi-week campaign to destroy evidence” that continues today.
End of November published human rights organization Amnesty International already has findings based on interviews with 28 Sudanese who fled Al Fashar. People who tried to escape were shot, raped and executed. Sudanese told Amnesty that they saw hundreds of bodies in the streets as they fled.
RSF has been fighting the Sudanese government army since April 2023, but that battle has now also resulted in RSF violence against non-Arab communities in the Darfur region. “The RSF has turned it into a war against the population,” former director of Doctors Without Borders Arjan Hehenkamp said in November. NRC.
The Yale researchers are calling on the “international community,” including the UN Security Council, to gain access to Al Fashar as quickly as possible and collect remaining evidence of the mass killings. “Time is running out, both for the living and for the evidence left behind by the deceased.”
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