DARFUR, Sudan – More than 1,000 civilians were killed when Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) overran a famine-stricken displacement camp in Darfur in April, with about a third of the victims summarily executed, according to a new report by the United Nations human rights office.
The 18-page report, released on Thursday, details what it describes as systematic and deliberate attacks on civilians during the April 11–13 assault on Zamzam camp in North Darfur, which was home to nearly 500,000 people displaced by Sudan’s civil war.
The UN said the RSF had, for months before the attack, blocked food and humanitarian supplies from entering the camp, worsening already dire conditions.
During the takeover, fighters allegedly carried out widespread killings, rape, torture and abductions.
At least 319 people were executed inside the camp or while attempting to flee, the report said, citing testimony from survivors.
“Such deliberate killing of civilians or persons hors de combat may constitute the war crime of murder,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement accompanying the findings.
The investigation is based on interviews conducted in July 2025 with 155 survivors and witnesses who fled across the border into Chad.
One survivor recounted how RSF fighters shot dead eight people hiding in a single room by firing rifles through a window.
The RSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The group has previously denied targeting civilians and has said it would hold its fighters accountable for any abuses.
The UN report describes the Zamzam camp attack as a precursor to a broader RSF offensive, including a late-October assault on the nearby city of al-Fashir.
Thousands of civilians are believed to have been executed or abducted there, with most of the city’s residents still unaccounted for.
Separately, the UN human rights office said earlier this week that drone attacks in Sudan’s Kordofan region killed more than 100 civilians this month, underscoring what it called a rapidly deteriorating human rights situation across the country.
