Emergency Lawyers, a human rights group in Sudan, have accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of killing nearly three hundred people. According to the group, RSF raided and set fire to villages in the state of North Kordofan. Emerging reports suggested that many people were attacked and burnt alive in their homes, including pregnant people and children.
The RSF have been in a civil war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since 2023. However, Sudanese civilians have borne the brunt of the conflict. In March 2025, Human Rights Watch accused the RSF of ethnic cleansing of the Masalit ethnic group and other non-Arab groups. As the Canary previously reported:
Arbitrary detention, torture, and rape are rife as people struggle to feed themselves.
Now, Emergency Lawyers have detailed how scores of civilians were killed and disappeared.
Sudan faces massacre after massacre
Al Jazeera reported that:
In one village, Shag Alnom, more than 200 people were killed in a “terrible massacre”, the group said. The victims were either “burned inside their homes” or shot. In the neighbouring villages, 38 other civilians were also killed and dozens more have been forcibly disappeared.
The day after that particular massacre, RSF forces carried out another atrocity in Hilat Hamid. Here, they killed at least 46 people, including children.
In a statement, the group said:
It has been proven that these targeted villages were completely empty of any military objectives, which makes clear the criminal nature of these crimes carried out in complete disregard of international humanitarian law.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) have also expressed concern over developing insecurity in Al Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan State. The group also warned that as people flee for their lives from North Kordofan:
the steady influx of newly displaced families is putting additional strain on already stretched resources.
OCHA estimate that more than half the population of Sudan – 30 million people – are in need of aid and protection as fighting between RSF and SAF intensifies.
Child casualties
UNICEF have similarly expressed their horror over the children killed in these massacres in Sudan. At least 35 children are thought to have been killed in the attacks in North Kordofan. UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said:
These attacks are an outrage. They represent a terrifying escalation of violence, and a complete disregard for human life, international humanitarian law, and the most basic principles of humanity.
UNICEF condemns the attacks in the strongest possible terms.
Russell concluded:
We extend our deepest condolences to the families of the victims, and to anyone impacted by this heinous violence.
No child should ever experience such horrors.
Emergency Lawyers also condemned RSF turning villages full of civilians into military targets:
It has been proven now that these villages that were targeted were completely out of their military objectives. These actions prove their criminal nature and are a grave disregard to international humanitarian law.
War crimes
The Arab Weekly explained that, regarding Sudan:
Military experts describe the situation as a war of attrition, preparatory to decisive battles in Darfur. The army has recently retaken ground near El Fasher, while the RSF threatens to push deeper into the northern state. Analysts agree that neither side can secure meaningful gains in the north or west without first asserting control over Kordofan.
However, of course, those military gains have a profound cost. Unfortunately, the massacres in North Kordofan State typify RSF strategies. Civilians have had their homes raided and looted, burned while they slept in them, and faced arbitrary detention and beatings. A report from Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders, otherwise known as MSF) earlier this month painted a grim picture.
The report found that:
Survivors of ground operations have reported systematic looting, the random or deliberate killing of civilians, and the burning of civilian buildings including private houses and markets. Sexual violence has been perpetrated on a large scale, while reports of numerous abductions of men and women suggest that disappearances have been a source of income for the RSF and their affiliates.
MSF describe a mixture of indiscriminate killing and targeting of ethnic minorities, particularly non-Arab communities. Their findings also show how people in Sudan have repeatedly been displaced due to wave after wave of continuous violence:
They are building precarious shelters on the ashes of their former homes, supporting growing numbers of displaced people and family members from nearby villages fleeing similar violence. All share their weariness at the seemingly eternal repetition of the past.
‘Crimes against humanity’ in Sudan
Just days ago, a senior prosecutor from the International Criminal Court (ICC) found that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that both war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed in Sudan. Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan said:
On the basis of our independent investigations, the position of our office is clear. We have reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur
She added that:
There is an inescapable pattern of offending, targeting gender and ethnicity through rape and sexual violence.
Relatedly, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa, Tigere Chagutah, said:
To stop this humanitarian emergency from spiraling further, parties to the armed conflict must facilitate rapid, unconditional and safe access to humanitarian aid, and end all attacks on humanitarian objects and personnel.
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.