US lawmakers urge terror designation for Sudan’s RSF following reported El Fasher Atrocities

U.S. lawmakers and humanitarian officials on Tuesday condemned reported atrocities committed by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in El Fasher, North Darfur, intensifying calls for Washington to designate the paramilitary militia as a foreign terrorist organization.

“The horrors in Darfur’s El Fasher were no accident — they were part of the RSF’s plan all along,” said the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. “The RSF has waged terror and committed unspeakable atrocities, genocide among them, against the Sudanese people.” He added, “The RSF must be called what it is: a foreign terrorist organization, and it must be officially designated as one.”

Congresswoman Sara Jacobs said she was “sickened by the images of the RSF seizing El Fasher,” calling on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to “cease their support now.” She urged the Trump administration to back “a real peace process that is not rigged to benefit external backers.” Congresswoman Ilhan Omar similarly demanded accountability, saying the UAE and other foreign suppliers of weapons to RSF-aligned militias “must be held accountable.”

The condemnation follows the RSF’s takeover of El Fasher, a city that endured more than 500 days of siege. Since its capture, reports have emerged of mass killings and grave human rights violations.

New U.S. intelligence reported by The Wall Street Journal indicates the UAE has increased supplies of Chinese-made drones and other military equipment to the RSF as recently as October — including small arms, heavy machine guns, vehicles, artillery, mortars, and ammunition, according to assessments by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Meanwhile, satellite imagery and open-source evidence analyzed by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab suggests the RSF likely carried out mass killings in El Fasher’s Daraja Oula neighborhood, where thousands of civilians had sought shelter. HRL reported visible tactical formations, street blockades, and earth discoloration near RSF vehicles consistent with executions and rapid burials. Additional imagery near the city’s defensive berm suggests civilians attempting to flee were killed.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned that its teams have been barred from accessing the city, describing a “calculated and long-planned campaign of destruction.”

“El Fasher has been under siege and bombardment for more than 500 days,” NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland said. “Vulnerable civilians tell us about house-to-house raids and of people hiding in holes underground to survive, as entire families are being killed