Inside the secret battle to document RSF abuses in Sudan

Published 28 July 2026 · world

Operating quietly, a human rights network is racing to document atrocities in Sudan before the evidence is erased. Under the skies of Sudan’s Darfur region

Operating quietly, a human rights network is racing to document atrocities in Sudan before the evidence is erased. Under the skies of Sudan’s Darfur region, a grim daily reality unfolds: entire families disappear, villages are burned to the ground, women are subjected to horrific sexual violence, and properties are looted. The large region of western Sudan is controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces since 2023, and have been accused of committing these atrocities. Opposition is not welcome in RSF-held territory, but working quietly to document the abuses are secret monitoring teams working with Sudan’s Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), gathering evidence in the hope that it will eventually be used to get justice for civilian victims. Operating under extreme conditions, the monitoring teams carry small mobile phones to document what they can. Documenting a genocide In an interview with Al Jazeera, Rahmatullah Mohammedin Abakar, director of the NCHR’s Darfur division, revealed the staggering challenges his field teams face. He stated that despite severe security threats, teams had continued their efforts driven by the NCHR’s institutional commitment and its mandate to monitor the human rights situation in Sudan. Operating covertly and relying on a network of locals using secure communication methods to avoid detection, the field teams say they have documented a systematic pattern of ethnic-based violence targeting civilians in every city under RSF control. The scale of the atrocities is staggering. Abakar said that the RSF has carried out mass executions that amount to genocide, adding that the NCHR possesses reliable reports of mass graves in both el-Geneina and el-Fasher, cities taken by the RSF in 2023 and 2025, respectively.

The NCHR has also documented nearly 4,000 cases of sexual violence across Darfur, with 20 percent of the victims being girls under the age of 18. This aligns with a June 2026 report by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which highlighted the unprecedented brutality and scale of conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan. Corroborating international probes The grassroots evidence gathered by the NCHR’s secret monitors closely mirrors the findings of other recent international investigations. A recent UN fact-finding mission concluded that the RSF’s systematic campaign of violence during and after its siege of el-Fasher amounted to genocide. The UN probe documented mass killings, gang rapes, and the intentional starvation of civilians as part of a deliberate policy. Investigators reported accounts of survivors being raped in rooms where the bodies of recently killed civilians, including their own family members, still lay on the floor. Amnesty International has also accused the RSF of committing crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in el-Fasher between early 2024 and October 2025. During its prolonged siege of the city, the RSF severely restricted humanitarian aid, creating a famine that forced desperate residents to eat animal feed to survive. Tens of thousands detained Beyond the killings and sexual violence, arbitrary detention remains a critical crisis. Abakar said that the RSF is currently holding 1,480 civilians in el-Fasher alone, including 446 children and 360 women, scattered across various detention centres in the city. The situation is even more dire in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.