Amnesty International urges RSF to end El Fasher siege, as WHO calls for immediate ceasefire
The World Health Organisation has called for an immediate ceasefire after reports that 460 patients and their companions were massacred at the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, amid escalating violence between rival forces.
Amnesty International has called on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to end its siege of El Fasher, warning that continued attacks are putting thousands of civilians at immediate risk and obstructing humanitarian aid.
In a statement, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa Tigere Chagutah said the ongoing violence has intensified the suffering of residents, many of whom have already endured months of siege.
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Chagutah described the situation in El Fasher as “horrifying”, urging the RSF to cease attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure immediately.
“The reports emerging from El Fasher are horrifying. The RSF must immediately end attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure and allow humanitarian aid into the city. They must also guarantee safe passage for civilians who are trying to flee the violence,” he said.
He decried that the people of El Fasher have already endured the RSF’s brutal 18-month-long siege of the city.
“Now is the time for the UN, AU, regional and other international actors to act swiftly to prevent further civilian suffering. All those responsible for the ongoing atrocities must be held individually accountable,” Chagutah said.
The organisation also highlighted the RSF’s history of serious violations in Darfur and across Sudan, which include ethnically targeted attacks against non-Arab communities, deliberate killings of civilians, sexual violence against women and girls and massacres reminiscent of those that took place in Darfur two decades ago.
“The international community must act now to prevent the RSF from repeating these atrocities in El Fasher,” Chagutah warned.
At the same time, the World Health Organisation has called for an immediate ceasefire after reports that 460 patients and their companions were massacred at the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, amid escalating violence between rival forces.
In a statement on Wednesday, the organisation said all attacks on health care must stop immediately and unconditionally, urging full protection for health workers, patients and medical facilities under international humanitarian law.
“WHO is appalled and deeply shocked by reports of the tragic killing of more than 460 patients and companions at Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, following recent attacks and the abduction of health workers,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“All attacks on health care must stop immediately and unconditionally. All patients, health personnel and health facilities must be protected under International Humanitarian Law.”
Tedros revealed that before this latest atrocity, the WHO had verified 185 attacks on health care in Sudan since the outbreak of conflict in April 2023, resulting in 1,204 deaths and 416 injuries among health workers and patients. Forty-nine of those incidents occurred this year alone, killing 966 people.
According to survivors and aid workers, RSF troops stormed the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher, turning it into what local medics described as a “human slaughterhouse.”
Video footage posted online by RSF fighters showed armed men walking through blood-stained wards filled with bodies. One injured man is shot at close range before the footage pans across a courtyard littered with corpses.
The Sudan Doctors Network, a coalition of medical professionals monitoring the conflict, said RSF forces “cold-bloodedly killed everyone they found inside the Saudi Hospital, including patients, their companions and anyone else present in the wards.”
The group added that six health workers, including four doctors, a pharmacist and a nurse, were abducted during the attack. It further alleged that the RSF demanded a ransom of 100 million Sudanese pounds (approximately Sh42,000) for each doctor.
A report released Tuesday by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) confirmed the killings, citing satellite imagery showing “clusters of body-sized objects and patches of reddish discolouration” consistent with pools of blood and human remains around the hospital.
The HRL said similar massacres occurred at a detention centre located in the former Children’s Hospital in the eastern part of the city. It noted that its analysis likely undercounts the number of victims because of a persistent communications blackout in the region.
The research lab also said the RSF’s attacks on hospitals, health workers and humanitarian personnel “amount to war crimes.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said thousands of civilians fleeing the RSF takeover have sought refuge in Tawila, about 60 kilometres from El Fasher. Many, the agency said, have arrived “dehydrated, injured and traumatised.”
“The UN and aid organisations are providing life-saving support, but the violence must stop,” OCHA said on social media.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell voiced alarm at the devastating impact on children, warning that “no child is safe.”
“While the full scale of the impact remains unclear due to widespread communications blackouts, the estimated 130,000 children in El Fasher are at high risk of grave rights violations, with reports of abduction, killing and maiming and sexual violence,” she said.
Russell called for an immediate ceasefire, safe humanitarian access and guaranteed passage for families seeking refuge, stressing that all parties must protect civilians, especially children, as required under international law.
She further demanded that “all those responsible for violations must be held accountable.”
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed “profound shock and outrage” after five local volunteers were killed in Bara, North Kordofan State.
“We received this news with profound shock and outrage, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms this horrific and senseless act,” the ICRC said in a statement.
The organisation pledged to continue its humanitarian operations across Sudan, striving to uphold the safety, dignity and protection of all people and communities impacted by the violence.
The conflict in Sudan, which began in April 2023, has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over 12 million, making it the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The RSF, a paramilitary force fighting the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), has laid siege to El Fasher since May 2024.
On October 26, the RSF claimed control of parts of El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur under SAF control, and on October 27, SAF announced it had withdrawn its forces from the city.
El Fasher was home to more than 1.5 million people, including hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons who fled fighting in other parts of Darfur in the early 2000s and from the ongoing conflict. Estimates suggest that around 260,000 civilians were trapped in the city ahead of the attacks.
Amnesty International has documented war crimes committed by the RSF and allied Arab militias, including ethnically targeted attacks against the Masalit and other non-Arab communities in West Darfur.
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