In a statement released Wednesday, September 3, 2025, the doctors said the actions of the RSF “represent nothing less than genocide.” the statement stressed that the deliberate targeting of civilians, combined with starvation tactics, amounts to a “systematic extermination” that meets the legal of definition of genocide under article ll of the 1948 UN Convention on the prevention and punishment of the Crime if Genocide.
El Fasher, home to hundreds of thousands of residents and displaced people, has been under RSF siege since May 2024. According to the statement, civilians are facing mass killings hunger, and indiscriminate shelling. “What is happening in El Fasher is genocide by design,” the network declared.
The statement was singed by the group’s official spokesperson, Dr. Ahmed al-Nour Raqm Allah, who warned that similar pattern are unfolding across Sudan’s Kordofan states. “What is happening in El Fasher is also happening in South, West, and North Kordofan, which are facing siege, forced displacement, and identity-based killings,” he said. The network added that these incidents are not isolated, but “a calculated policy of genocide and crimes against humanity.”
The RSF has tightened its grip on El Fasher, one of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) last stronghold in Darfur, by cutting off supply routes and bombarding neighborhoods with artillery fire. Residents and avoid workers say the siege has turned daily survival into a desperate struggle.
With markets depleted and food price soaring beyond reach, many residents now survive on ambaz, the byproduct of groundnut and sesame oil pressing, once considered animal feed but now a staple meal. The shortage of clean water and food has also fueled the spread of epidemics, including a cholera outbreak in Darfur that has worsened under siege conditions.
Humanitarian groups have long warned that the siege of El Fasher risks triggering one of the worst mass atrocities in Sudan’s recent history. Yet, despite international appeals, access to the city remains blocked, and relief operations have been unable to reach the population trapped inside.
The Sudanese Doctors Network reiterated its call for urgent international action to stop the killings and hold perpetrators accountable. “This is not a series of random attacks,” the statement emphasized. “It is a deliberate and systematic policy designed to destroy communities.”
As the war between the RSF and the SAF grinds on, the fate of El Fasher symbolizes the wider crisis across Darfur and Kordofan, where civilians are bearing the brunt of sieges, displacement, and indiscriminate violence.
