Khaberni - The Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Nazhat Shamim Khan, accused the Rapid Support Forces on Monday of digging mass graves to hide "war crimes and crimes against humanity" committed in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
Khan stated in a briefing to the United Nations Security Council that the Office of the Prosecutor had concluded that "war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed in Al Fasher, especially in late October as the siege of the city by the Rapid Support Forces reached its peak."
She explained in the briefing, delivered via video due to her inability to obtain a United States visa, that the office relied on audio and visual materials and satellite imagery "indicating massive killings and attempts to hide the crimes by digging mass graves."
Rapid Support Forces tightened their siege on Al Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, in May 2024, until they completely controlled it in October 2025.
Satellite images in December showed traces of what appeared to be graves over an area of 3600 square meters.
Similarly, an analysis by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University in the United States in late November identified "piles of objects consistent with human bodies" that had been moved, buried, or burned.
Testimonies from survivors of the Al Fasher battle reported targeting of civilians as they fled the city, including summary executions and sexual violence.
Khan warned that the people of Darfur were undergoing "massive torture," adding that "the fall of Al Fasher was accompanied by a systematic and calculated campaign to subject non-Arab communities to deep suffering."
She added, "Based on our investigations, sexual violence, including rape, is being used as a weapon of war in Darfur," and that "the emerging picture is a horrific image of a widespread and organized crime that includes mass executions and atrocities."
She confirmed that these crimes encompass the entire vast region and are not limited to Al Fasher.
She spoke of evidence that "the atrocities committed in Geneina in 2023 were repeated in Al Fasher in 2025, and these crimes are repeating in one city after another in Darfur," warning that they will continue "until an end is put to this conflict and the impunity."
United Nations experts estimate that the Rapid Support Forces killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people in Geneina city in West Darfur, most of them from the Masalit tribe.
Khan renewed her call to the Sudanese authorities to surrender the individuals against whom the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants.
The ongoing war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces since April 2023 has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, the displacement of at least 11 million people, and a famine and displacement crisis considered by the United Nations as the worst in the world.
