The office attributes the abuses to Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters during attacks linked to the fall of El Fasher late last year.
According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), civilians, including people who had fled besieged El Fasher, were subjected to torture, abductions and killings during a three-day offensive on Zamzam camp for displaced people from April 11, 2025, to April 13, 2025.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the findings indicate that more than 1 000 civilians were killed in the Zamzam attack alone. This includes at least 319 people who were summarily executed in their homes, markets, schools, health facilities and places of worship.
He warned that the deliberate killing of civilians or persons hors de combat may amount to the war crime of murder, urging the international community not to allow such abuses to become entrenched.
At the time of the assault, Zamzam camp was sheltering an estimated 500 000 people displaced by the Sudan conflict, which began in April 2023 following the collapse of the country’s transition to civilian rule.
The report states that the attack, carried out by the RSF with allied Arab militias, involved heavy artillery shelling and ground incursions. It followed months of intensified assaults on El Fasher and surrounding camps, which had already prompted UN warnings about the safety of civilians in the area.
OHCHR documented at least 104 cases of sexual violence, including rape, gang rape and sexual slavery. The victims included 75 women, 26 girls and three boys, most of them from the Zaghawa ethnic group. The report notes that sexual violence appeared to have been deliberately used to terrorise the community.
Witness testimony collected by UN investigators describes fighters targeting civilians at religious sites and schools. One survivor recounted how gunmen fired through small holes in a room where displaced men were hiding, killing eight people. Another woman who returned to the camp after the attack described finding bodies scattered across empty roads while searching for her missing 15-year-old son.
The findings are based on UN human rights monitoring, including a field mission to eastern Chad in July, 2025, and interviews with 155 victims and witnesses who fled Zamzam camp during and after the offensive.
Türk has called for an impartial and thorough investigation into the attack and stressed that those responsible for serious violations of international law must be held accountable through fair judicial processes.
–UN/ChannelAfrica–
