Key points
- More than a thousand civilians were killed when militants took over a displaced persons camp in April, according to a UN report.
- According to survivor testimony, about a third of the victims, at least 319 people, were summarily executed.
- Survivors reported widespread killings, rapes, torture, kidnappings and attacks on civilians.
More than 1,000 civilians were killed when a Sudanese paramilitary group took over a famine-stricken displaced persons camp in Sudan’s Darfur region in April, according to a report by the United Nations Human Rights Office.
Months before the April 11-13 attack, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) blocked the access of food and supplies to the Zamzam camp, which housed nearly half a million people displaced by the civil war, according to the UN report released Thursday.
During the takeover, the RSF carried out attacks on civilians, the UN report said, and survivors reported widespread killings, rapes, torture and kidnappings, with at least 319 people executed in the camp or while trying to flee.
They then focused their attack on the camp’s last remaining medical clinic, killing nine aid workers, according to Relief International, which ran the facility.
“Such intentional killing of civilians or persons outside combat may constitute the war crime of murder,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement accompanying the 18-page report.
The findings are based on interviews conducted in July 2025 with 155 survivors and witnesses who fled to Chad.
One of them testified that eight people hiding in a room in the camp were killed by RSF fighters who stuck guns through a window and fired at the group, the report said.
The United States and several human rights groups have accused the paramilitary group of genocidal acts in Darfur.
The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. The group has previously denied harming civilians and allegations of genocide, saying it will hold its forces accountable for any violations.
The April attack was a precursor to the assault on the northern town of Al-Fasher in late October, where the RSF is accused of summarily executing and kidnapping thousands of people. Most of the people believed to have lived in the town are not mentioned.
Separately on Tuesday, the UN human rights office said drones had killed more than 100 civilians in Sudan’s Kordofan this month.
Meanwhile, the US, Britain and Norway on Thursday urged Sudanese leaders to “urgently change course” and called on all sides to stop armed attacks and return to a ceasefire, saying a return to even greater levels of violence would also destabilize the region.
“The transitional government must end its airstrikes on its own citizens; release political prisoners; use government revenues to pay public sector workers; and finance health care, education and other essential services for its citizens,” the countries wrote in a joint statement.
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