NEW YORK: Violence that engulfed the Sudanese city of El-Fasher last October was a “preventable human rights catastrophe” in which thousands were killed and tens of thousands forced to flee after months of siege by the Rapid Support Forces, the UN high commissioner for human rights said on Monday.

“After imposing 18 months of siege, starvation and bombardment, the Rapid Support Forces unleashed a wave of intense violence, in which thousands of people were killed in a matter of days, and tens of thousands fled in terror,” Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“Our collective job is to hold those responsible accountable, and to make sure this never happens again.”

During his recent visit to Sudan, Turk said he had heard first-hand accounts from survivors of RSF’s offensive on El-Fasher. “I have rarely seen people so traumatized by their experiences,” he added.

UN human rights staff interviewed more than 140 victims and witnesses in Sudan’s Northern State and in eastern Chad.

They “consistently reported mass killings and summary executions of civilians and those no longer participating in hostilities, both inside the city and as people fled,” Turk said.

Survivors also reported rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture, ill-treatment, detention, disappearances and abductions for ransom, he added.

“In one horrific example, people who fled to separate locations, thousands of kilometers apart, gave consistent accounts of the mass killing of hundreds of people sheltering at El-Fasher University,” he said. Others described attacks on health facilities and healthcare workers.

Turk said his office had received “convincing testimony” that some victims were targeted because of their non-Arab ethnicity, “in particular, members of the Zaghawa ethnic group.”

He added: “Survivors also spoke of seeing piles of dead bodies along roads leading away from El-Fasher, in an apocalyptic scene that one person likened to the Day of Judgment.”

Sexual violence was “systematically used as a weapon of war” by the RSF and allied militias, Turk said.

During his visit, he met survivors who gave “consistent and harrowing testimony of gang rape and other sexual violence against women and girls.”

The UN documented multiple accounts of sexual violence during abductions and searches as women and girls attempted to flee the city, he added.

Turk said RSF fighters and their allies abducted people fleeing El-Fasher and demanded “exorbitant ransoms” for their release.

Most victims were men and adolescent boys judged to be of fighting age, but women and children were also targeted, he added.

“Thousands remain missing. Some were undoubtedly killed; others are believed to be held in inhumane detention conditions, subjected to torture and ill-treatment,” Turk said.

Thousands were reportedly transferred to Tagris prison in Nyala, South Darfur, “where we know conditions are horrendous.”

He said the RSF and allied forces detained people perceived to be affiliated with the Sudanese Armed Forces and allied Joint Forces, as well as government officials, medical professionals, journalists, teachers and local humanitarian volunteers.

“Former detainees reported that more than 2,000 men were held in El-Fasher Children’s Hospital,” Turk said, adding that those who died in detention were reportedly buried near the hospital.

His office also documented the recruitment and use of children by the RSF, “either through pressure on communities, or through direct coercion,” he said.

The International Criminal Court told the UN Security Council last month that it had assessed that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed in El-Fasher during the final phase of the RSF siege.

“Our own findings are fully consistent with this conclusion,” Turk said, adding that they would be detailed in a public report to be issued in the coming days.

He added that his office had warned for more than a year of the risk of mass atrocities in El-Fasher, including during an RSF offensive on the Zamzam displacement camp in April 2025. “The threat was clear, but our warnings were ignored,” he said.

“Responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies squarely with the RSF and their allies and supporters,” Turk added, while also criticizing the international community.

“If we stand by, wringing our hands while armies and armed groups commit well-flagged international crimes, we can only expect worse to come.”

Turk said he is “extremely concerned” that similar violations could be repeated in Sudan’s Kordofan region, where fighting has intensified since the capture of El-Fasher.

In recent weeks, the SAF and allied Joint Forces broke sieges on Kadugli and Dilling, he said, but drone strikes by both sides are continuing, killing and injuring civilians.

“In a period of just over two weeks to Feb. 6, based on documentation by my office, some 90 civilians were killed and 142 injured in drone strikes by the RSF and the SAF,” Turk added.

The strikes hit a World Food Programme convoy, markets, health facilities and residential neighborhoods in South and North Kordofan.

Nearly three years into the conflict, Turk said his office continues to document “flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of international human rights law, with no effective measures to address or prevent them.”

He also warned that hate speech is frequently used to incite ethnically motivated violence. “Leaders use dehumanizing rhetoric against communities to justify atrocities, mobilize fighters, and deepen divisions,” he said. “I myself saw the effects of that language in the stories and faces of the survivors I met.”

Turk urged states to reflect on what could have been done to prevent the deaths in El-Fasher, and to act to stop a repeat elsewhere in Sudan.

He said his office has shared a list of human rights-based confidence-building measures with both sides to support mediation and de-escalation.

These “concrete steps” include commitments not to target civilians or residential areas with explosive weapons, to reduce harm to civilians, to allow unimpeded humanitarian aid, to end arbitrary detention, and to treat detainees humanely, he added.

Turk also called for an end to attacks on civilian infrastructure. He said he had witnessed damage from RSF attacks on the Merowe dam and hydroelectric power station, which once supplied 70 percent of Sudan’s electricity.

“Repeated drone strikes have disrupted power and water supplies to huge numbers of people, with a serious impact on healthcare,” he added.

Turk urged the international community to address the continuous inflow of weapons, warning that advanced drone systems used by both sides are putting civilians at risk nationwide. “I urge you to press for the arms embargo on Darfur to be extended across the whole of Sudan,” he said.

Turk also called for support to civil society, journalists, human rights defenders, and community and religious leaders to counter hate speech and divisive ideologies, and urged states with influence to strengthen local, regional and international mediation efforts.

During his visit, he said, one message stood out: “The spirit of the struggle for peace, justice and freedom is still very much alive. The Sudanese people hold the key to sustainable peace in their country, and they will prevail.”