“Our only mission is to kill”: How brutal Sudanese militia carried out a massacre in El Fasher

Warning: This report contains graphic descriptions of executions.

Some fighters laugh as they ride in the back of a truck and speed past a row of nine bodies with the Sudanese sun setting in the background.

Someone chants: “Look at all this work. Look at this genocide.”

“Everyone will die like this,” he smiles as he turns the camera to himself and his fellow militiamen, showing their Rapid Support Forces insignia.

The men are celebrating the massacre that humanitarian officials now fear killed more than 2,000 people in the Sudanese city of El Fasher last month.

The International Criminal Court said last week it was investigating whether the paramilitary group may have committed “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

El Fasher was a major target for the Rwandan Armed Forces. It was the last stronghold in Darfur in the hands of the Sudanese army, with which the paramilitary Rwandan Armed Forces (RAF) have been waging war since the collapse of its ruling coalition in 2023.

It is estimated that more than 150,000 people have died in fighting over the past two years, and both sides bear a long list of accusations of war crimes, accusations that were repeated after the fall of El Fasher.

After keeping the city under siege for nearly two years, Rwandan armed forces mobilized beginning in August to reinforce their position and besiege the remaining civilian population.

Satellite images show that forces have begun building a massive berm (high sand barrier) around the perimeter of El Fasher, closing access roads and preventing aid.

By early October, the ring completely surrounded the city, with a smaller barrier blocking off a neighboring town.

At least 78 people were killed in a Rwandan armed forces attack on a mosque on September 19 amid escalating violence, while the UN reported that 53 more were killed in drone attacks and artillery shelling on a camp for displaced people in October.

Videos shared with Verified by BBC They also noted that the Rwandan armed forces attempted to impose a blockade on food and basic supplies.

In October, footage was shown of a man with his hands and feet tied behind his back and hanging upside down from a tree with metal chains.

The man who filmed the video accused him of trying to smuggle supplies into the besieged city.

He shouted: “I swear to God, you will pay for this, you dog,” before demanding that the prisoner beg for his life.

Meanwhile, the Rwandan Armed Forces advanced into the city and the troops engaged in frantic street-to-street fighting.

At dawn on 26 October, as the army withdrew, the Rwandan Armed Forces took control of the army’s final positions and took control of the city’s main base, the headquarters of the 6th Infantry Division.

Soldiers were filmed laughing as they walked, carrying grenade launchers, around the abandoned headquarters. Later that day, FAR Commander Abderrahim Dagalo – brother of FAR Commander Mohamed “Hemedti” Dagalo – was seen inspecting the base.

The Rwandan Armed Forces – which emerged from the Janjaweed militia that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur between 2003 and 2005 – have long been accused of committing atrocities against non-Arab groups throughout Sudan.

Images posted online indicate that the paramilitary fighters intended to unleash violence against the civilian population in El Fasher.

For months there was little information about what was happening in El Fasher. But within hours of the city’s fall, images of human rights abuses committed by the Rwandan armed forces began appearing online.

One of the most graphic videos that appeared and was analyzed by Verified by BBC The photo shows a university building located on the western side of the city, which was the scene of a massacre that left dozens of bodies scattered on the ground.

The pictures show an old man wearing a white abaya sitting alone among the corpses. He turns to see a fighter armed with a rifle coming down the stairs towards him.

The militiaman then raised his weapon and fired a single shot at the man, who collapsed motionless on the ground. The other soldiers, bravely, immediately noticed another man’s leg moving among the jumble of bodies.

“Why is this person still alive?” shouts one of the fighters. In the video you hear, “They shot him.”

Satellite images taken on October 26 appear to confirm that executions also took place in the streets of El Fasher, according to a report published by the Yale Humanitarian Research Laboratory.

Its analysts detected large “clumps” visible in the images, which they said “correspond to the usual size of adult human bodies and do not appear in previous images.”

They also noted “discolouration” which the report said could be due to marks caused by human blood.

An eyewitness told the BBC that he saw “many of our relatives being slaughtered – they gathered in one place and were all killed.”

Another witness spoke of seeing a woman killed after the Rwandan armed forces “shot her in the chest before throwing her body aside” after stealing all of her belongings.

While the main force of the Rwandan armed forces destroyed El Fasher, another group of fighters remained on the outskirts of the city, where they devoted themselves to executing defenseless prisoners.

Most of these atrocities occurred in an area about 8 kilometers from El Fasher.

Verified videos show dozens of bodies in civilian clothes, some of which appear to be women, lying in a trench running along the perimeter of the berm erected by the Rwandan armed forces.

Other clips show scenes of devastation, with out-of-control fires and charred remains of trucks scattered across the landscape.

Video clips from the scene of the accident also show bodies scattered among the vehicles.

A key figure in these episodes of violence has previously been identified by Verified by BBC As a commander of the Royal Armed Forces who calls himself Abu Lulu connected.

He appeared in two video clips executing unarmed prisoners, while an eyewitness told the BBC that he “ordered his men to kill many innocent people, including children.”

One clip showed a Rwandan armed forces soldier trying to mediate as Abu Lulu prepared to execute a wounded man, while the captive pleaded: “I know you. I called you a few days ago.”

Abu Lulu rejected the man’s pleas to wave, saying: “I will never show mercy. Our mission is only to kill.”

Then he carelessly pointed his gun at the man and fired a volley of bullets that tore through the defenseless man.

Another video clip showed him killing a group of nine unarmed prisoners. Pictures that emerged days later revealed that the bodies had been left at the site, still lined up execution-style, inert on the dusty soil of Darfur.

Many of those involved in the killings wore Rwandan Armed Forces insignia, including a group that later celebrated the massacre as “genocide.”

In the days following the massacre, the commander of the Rwandan armed forces, Lieutenant General Mohamed Dagalo, admitted that his militiamen had committed “abuses” and said that the incidents would be investigated.

A senior UN official reported a few days ago that the Rwandan Armed Forces reported that they had arrested some suspects in their ranks. Among them was Abu Lulu, who was subsequently arrested Verified by BBC He published a report documenting his crimes.

A carefully choreographed and edited video, posted on the Rwandan Armed Forces’ official Telegram account, shows him being taken to a prison cell outside El Fasher.

Yale analysts also accused the Rwandan armed forces of “conducting a clean-up of alleged mass atrocities.”

A November 4 report noted that satellite images showed the removal of “items identical in appearance to bodies from a site north of the Rwandan Armed Forces berm” and the identification of mass graves near the children’s hospital in El Fasher.

On October 30, Verified by BBC The white objects seen in the hospital courtyard were measured to be between 1.6 meters and 2 meters long.

This is similar to the height of an adult human and the bodies may be wrapped in burial shrouds, a common practice in Sudan.

The Rwandan Armed Forces and its social media accounts began seeking to change the narrative.

Some users shared posts showing their fighters providing aid to civilians, while the paramilitary group’s press office shared several clips claiming to show humane treatment of military personnel captured in the war.

Despite a social media campaign by the Rwandan Armed Forces, its actions in El Fasher have sparked global outrage.

Verified by BBC I contacted the Rwandan Armed Forces and were given the opportunity to respond to the accusations contained in this investigation. The group did not respond.

With additional reporting by Kevin Nguyen, Kumar Malhotra, Richard Irvin Brown, Daniel Palumbo, Alex Murray, Barbara Metzler, Lamis Talbi, and Ahmed Nour. Graphics by Jess Carr and Mesut Ersuz.

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