ICC closes in on Sudan’s RSF commanders

The International Criminal Court says it has made a significant breakthrough in its investigation into alleged atrocities committed during the war in Sudan, identifying evidence that could connect senior Rapid Support Forces commanders to war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told the BBC that investigators had gathered evidence linking crimes committed on the ground to individuals in leadership positions. Khan did not indicate when charges or arrest warrants might follow, acknowledging that international prosecutions often take time. However, she said the investigation had made substantial progress and expressed confidence that those responsible could eventually be brought before the court.

The development comes at a critical time for Sudan, which has been engulfed by a brutal civil war that has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In recent weeks, calls have intensified for action to prevent further atrocities in El-Obeid, the capital of Sudan’s North Kordofan state, as the Rapid Support Forces encircle the city and escalate drone and artillery attacks.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned last month that an offensive on El-Obeid could result in serious international crimes and reproduce the violence previously documented in El Fasher and the Zamzam displacement camp. Similarly, the UN Security Council unanimously expressed alarm over the imminent risk of mass atrocities, demanded that the RSF halt its assault and called for civilians to be protected, humanitarian access to be guaranteed and perpetrators to be investigated. UNICEF subsequently told the Council that about 500,000 civilians were at risk.

On July 8, the UN Human Rights Council went further, adopting without a vote a resolution condemning the RSF’s escalating violence and directing the UN Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan to urgently investigate alleged violations and international crimes in and around El-Obeid. The warnings have been reinforced by a broad group of governments demanding that the RSF immediately halt its assault and that all states exert maximum pressure on Sudan’s warring parties and their allies. The United States issued a separate warning that mass atrocities could be imminent.

Regional and civil-society organisations have issued parallel appeals. The African Union Commission called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, the protection of civilians, humanitarian access and accountability, while the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights warned explicitly that the October 2025 atrocities in El Fasher could be repeated in El-Obeid. IGAD demanded an end to all military operations around the city.

These appeals have been driven by the atrocities committed in El Fasher in October 2025. For roughly 18 months, from mid-2024 until October 2025, the RSF tightened their siege around El Fasher, then the Sudanese army’s final major stronghold in Darfur, despite repeated international warnings and a UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to the blockade.

RSF forces cut supply and escape routes, obstructed humanitarian assistance and repeatedly attacked residential neighbourhoods, displacement camps, markets, communal kitchens, hospitals and places of worship with artillery and drones. Food, water and medicine became so scarce that residents survived on animal fodder, leaves and other emergency substitutes, while children and elderly people died from malnutrition and treatable illnesses. By the time the city’s defences collapsed, the UN said civilians had been left trapped, starving, traumatised and physically weakened—conditions that made them largely defenceless against the assault that followed.

When the RSF entered and seized El Fasher on October 26 and 27, 2025, the siege gave way to what UN investigators described as days of mass and ethnically targeted violence. Survivors reported point-blank executions in homes and streets, the shooting of families attempting to escape, killings at checkpoints and along evacuation routes, attacks on patients and wounded people, widespread rape and gang rape, torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances.

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission said the campaign principally targeted the non-Arab Zaghawa and Fur communities and was accompanied by dehumanising and exterminatory language. Its 2026 report, Sudan: Hallmarks of Genocide in El Fasher, concluded that the atrocities demonstrated genocidal intent and presented “indications pointing to genocide” and renewed genocidal acts. The mission also identified crimes against humanity—including extermination and ethnic persecution—and war crimes such as murder, starvation, torture and sexual violence.

More than four years after fighting erupted, Sudan’s war has evolved from an internal struggle for power into an increasingly regionalised conflict. The enormous civilian toll—including mass killings, sexual violence, forced displacement and deliberate deprivation—has been compounded by the flow of foreign weapons, financing and personnel to the rival camps.

The United Arab Emirates has faced the most sustained scrutiny. Abu Dhabi has repeatedly denied arming or financing the RSF. However, weapons-tracing investigations have identified Chinese guided bombs and howitzers used by the RSF that Amnesty International assessed were almost certainly re-exported by the UAE. Reuters also reported mortar rounds seized from an RSF convoy bearing the same serial number as ammunition previously exported from Bulgaria to the Emirati military.

Colombian mercenaries have also been recruited through a transnational network involving a UAE-based security company and recruitment firms in Colombia and Panama. Human Rights Watch identified the Abu Dhabi-based Global Security Services Group as having hired hundreds of Colombian contractors, while the United States has sanctioned several individuals and companies involved in recruiting and deploying them to fight alongside the RSF.

Ethiopia has more recently become entangled with the war. In May 2026, Sudan recalled its ambassador from Addis Ababa after alleging that several drone attacks, including strikes on Khartoum International Airport and military installations, had been launched from Ethiopian territory using drones supplied by the UAE.

Ethiopia rejected the accusation as baseless and, in turn, accused the Sudanese military authorities of providing logistical assistance to fighters associated with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and of allowing Sudanese territory to serve as a base for “anti-Ethiopian forces.” Neither side’s principal allegations have been independently established, but the exchange illustrates how Sudan’s conflict is intersecting with competing regional security interests across the Horn of Africa.

The latest ICC investigation has not named potential suspects or announced new public arrest warrants. However, the development follows findings by the UN fact-finding mission that RSF mass killings, widespread rape, abductions and the deliberate starvation of civilians during the siege and capture of El Fasher formed part of an intentional policy amounting to genocide. The ICC investigation and the UN findings are increasing pressure not only on the direct perpetrators of atrocities, but also on commanders and external actors alleged to have facilitated or enabled the violence.