Yale data shows 57 el-Fasher grave sites vanished within one month

Researchers at Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab identified 57 clusters of objects consistent with human remains in el-Fasher that disappeared entirely within four weeks of the city’s fall. This erasure occurred in the wake of the largest single massacre of the Sudanese war, which began in April 2023. The RSF captured el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, after a siege lasting more than 500 days. The final offensive launched on October 26, 2025. Monitoring groups using satellite imagery counted at least 6,000 dead in the first 72 hours. About 260,000 people were still inside the city when the assault began.

The Yale team found 150 clusters of potential remains between October 26 and November 28, 2025. Twenty of these sites showed signs of burning. The RSF has maintained a communications blackout in el-Fasher and barred human rights investigators from the area. In December, a United Nations team entered the city under close supervision. Officials described the location as a crime scene. One in six people screened by the UN team suffered from severe acute malnutrition. RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, announced an investigation into violations committed by his soldiers.

Survivors describe ongoing violence in the city. Hala, a woman who uses a pseudonym for security, returned from the Tawila refugee camp three weeks ago to collect documents. RSF fighters questioned her on arrival and issued a handwritten entry permit. The next day, soldiers spoke to her in the street with abusive language. She said women face sexual violence and that civilians who refuse RSF demands risk beating or torture. "There is no security in el-Fasher at all," Hala told the campaign group Avaaz. She has returned to Tawila and says she will not go back.

Moamed Hassan, a resident, said fighters executed men they judged to be soldiers of the Sudanese Armed Forces or its allied Joint Forces. Close to 500 people were killed at the Saudi Maternity Hospital, where displaced families and medical staff sheltered. UN investigators documented mass killings at el-Fasher University, on roads leaving the city, and at the berms the RSF built around the perimeter. This week, volunteers in the North Kordofan town of Bara recovered more than 600 bodies from 200 mass graves. Witnesses identified most of the dead as civilians killed during the October offensive.

Displacement has reached critical levels. Tawila now hosts approximately 800,000 people, most from el-Fasher. Survivors report that RSF fighters detain fleeing men and demand ransoms of up to $3,000. Khadijah, an elderly woman from el-Geneina, lives under a tree on a farm with little food and no shelter. Mudathir Mohammed Diqourni of an el-Fasher resistance committee stated that RSF militias are destroying farms and killing farmers in South and Central Darfur. A doctor who worked in an el-Fasher hospital for nearly two years described surgery performed by phone flashlight due to generator limits.

A UN fact-finding mission concluded in February that the RSF committed acts of genocide in el-Fasher. The United States government and Amnesty International have reached similar findings regarding Darfur. The UN mission found reasonable grounds to believe private companies and recruiters in the UAE routed weapons through Chad, southeastern Libya, and Bosaso in Somalia. Mona Rishmawi, a member of the mission, said the supplies included weapons, drone equipment, logistical support, and personnel. The United States remains the top weapons supplier to the UAE, while British weaponry has been found on Sudanese battlefields.