Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have carried out a series of attacks on villages in North Darfur state, near the border with Chad, razing entire settlements and killing dozens of civilians, according to survivors and the United Nations. The assaults, which began on Friday, have displaced thousands more as the RSF continues its westward push against army-allied armed groups.
Survivors described scenes of systematic destruction. Issa Ibrahim, who fled with his family into Chad, told reporters: "They sent artillery through homes, they burned to the ground and people died on the street with no one to bury them." He added that the villages of Oruwa and Ana Baji were "burned entirely. Bodies lay on the ground."
Mohamed Adam, a 43-year-old resident of the village Qarboura, said two of his brothers were killed in the attacks, where fighters "burned down homes and killed everyone who couldn't run away." The UN's migration agency reported that more than 3,500 people were displaced from the single village of Wadi Fungo in the Um Baru locality.
Ethnic Targeting and Genocide Allegations
The RSF has been at war with the Sudanese army since April 2023, and has been repeatedly accused by the UN of committing massacres against Darfur's non-Arab ethnic groups, particularly the Zaghawa population. Last year, the RSF seized the army's last Darfur stronghold of El-Fasher in an assault that a UN inquiry said bore the "hallmarks of genocide." Since then, the paramilitary group has pushed west, attacking enclaves controlled by the Joint Forces, a coalition of army-allied groups whose fighters are also predominantly Zaghawa.
Rights groups and survivors have documented a pattern of war crimes by the RSF, including the besieging and razing of displacement camps, systematic sexual violence, and ethnic massacres. The conflict has killed tens of thousands, with aid workers estimating the death toll at over 200,000 since April 2023.
Children Bear the Brunt
In a separate report released Monday, the United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) said that the RSF has killed or injured at least 330 children in the first six months of 2026. The figures include more than 200 children killed and at least 100 maimed, mostly in the Kordofan and Darfur regions, where the worst of the RSF atrocities have occurred.
"Children are being killed and injured in their homes, on the roads, in markets, and while attempting to access essential services such as education and healthcare," said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF's Sudan chief. Across Sudan, five million children are internally displaced, and millions are going hungry, including over 825,000 children under five suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
The ongoing violence and humanitarian crisis in Sudan have drawn international concern, but the situation remains dire. The European Union has previously condemned the RSF's actions and called for a ceasefire, but the conflict shows no signs of abating. For European readers, the crisis underscores the fragility of regional stability and the need for sustained diplomatic engagement, particularly as the war fuels displacement that could affect migration patterns toward Europe.
