1.3.2. General situation

In RSF-controlled areas, numerous incidents of summary executions were reported in North Darfur occurring during the fighting, including extrajudicial killings of humanitarian personnel and civilians found hiding in improvised bomb shelters’ (known as khanadiq124) or attempting to flee.125 RSF commanders were directly implicated in atrocities and showed no intention to stop them, as illustrated by the case of an RSF field commander that appeared in several videos either personally executing or ordering the execution of detainees in October 2025.126 Survivors who fled El Fasher after the fall of the city in October 2025, described witnessing the shooting of groups of men and ‘seeing hundreds of dead bodies’ left in the streets and along main roads out of the city.127 A large number of videos posted by RSF fighters themselves showed the perpetration of mass killings.128 The civilians who stayed in the city were labelled by the RSF as collaborators of its enemies and individuals found carrying supplies were immediately executed. Women and children trying to flee the city were deliberately run over by RSF drivers, according to The New Humanitarian.129 In April 2025, a summary execution of at least 17 civilians accused of collaborating with the SAF, including two women, was carried out by RSF fighters in Al-Halba, a village in the White Nile state.130 For additional information see section 2.5. Ethnic groups. A source interviewed by the Sudan Tribune in February 2026 noted that in Khartoum ‘the RSF used land designated for a medical complex hospital near Obaid Khatim Street to bury the dead in both individual and mass graves.’ The same source estimated that ‘more than 1 000 bodies are buried at the site.’131

Both the SAF and the RSF were implicated in arbitrary detention of civilians and military personnel being held without legal process or formal charges, often indefinitely, as found by an investigation by the SHRH. The RSF reportedly used detention as a tool for ransom and ethnic targeting ‘particularly against non-Arab communities’, and the SAF using imprisonment to suppress those it perceived as RSF collaborators.132 The ACHPR FFM recorded violations by the SAF and the RSF including arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention across Al Jazirah, Gedaref, Blue Nile, Darfur, Kassala, Khartoum, Kordofan, Northern and Sennar states.133 For additional information see section 2.1. on Perceived political opponents and section 2.5 on Ethnic groups.

Multiple SAF-aligned forces organised into so-called security cells have been involved in unlawful detentions. The security cells included the General Intelligence Service (GIS), the Military Intelligence Service (MIS), and on occasion a military-affiliated militia, the Al-Baraa Bin Malik Battalion (BBMB).134 Often arrests happened at checkpoints and Starlink satellite internet access points, usually following telephone searches that allegedly identified ‘“anti-war” content’ or other material interpreted as evidence of ‘collaboration’ with the opposing party to the conflict. 135 UN OHCHR reported that the SAF held under arrest up to 4 000 individuals – ‘including civil society actors and perceived opponents’– as they recaptured Al Jazirah state’s capital, Wad Madani, in January 2025.136

In September 2025, Ayin network reported that the RSF have ‘tightened restrictions on civilian movement in areas under their control,’ particularly affecting young men attempting to travel to territories held by the SAF for work or study. In one reported incident in Umm Bader, North Kordofan, approximately 66 young men and students were allegedly arrested by the RSF and transferred to detention facilities in Darfur, while women were permitted to continue their journey. Families reported that some detainees were released only after payment of ransom.137

In April 2025, the ACJPS reported an increase in unlawful detention and torture by SAF-aligned forces in Sinjah town, primarily attributed to the MIS, targeting women human rights defenders ‘working to support women’, aid workers providing food to the displaced, and displaced people from Darfur, following the army’s recapture of Sennar state in November 2024.138 For additional information on arbitrary arrests and detention of women and girls, see section 2.6.2. Violence against women and girls.

Enforced disappearances, namely taking individuals into custody and then holding them incommunicado while their whereabouts remain unknown, have become a systematic pattern of the Sudan conflict. Investigations by local and international organisations indicated that both the SAF and the RSF, as well as affiliated militias and security bodies, were implicated in these practices.139 These kidnappings and abductions occurred since the conflict broke out in 2023 and ‘intensified since the beginning of 2025’.140

In May 2025, the Emergency Lawyers found that ‘the most alarming aspect’ of SAF’s arbitrary arrest campaigns was that ‘in many cases, there is no trial or even imprisonment. Instead punishment is carried out immediately.’ The group documented field executions and enforced disappearances, particularly in Khartoum state.141

The ACHPR FFM recorded violations by the SAF and the RSF including enforced disappearances across Al Jazirah, Gedaref, Blue Nile, Darfur, Kassala, Khartoum, Kordofan, Northern and Sennar states.142

Multiple social media posts have reported instances of individuals disappearing under unknown circumstances, later being located in detention centres or remaining unaccounted for.143 In April 2026, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Sudan reported that the number of missing persons cases recorded had reached over 11 000, with an increase of more than 40 % in the previous 15 months.144 For additional information see section 2.1 on Perceived political opponents, section 2.3.2 on journalists and other media personnel and section 2.4.2 on the situation of aid workers.

Both parties designated former prisons, military compounds and civilian buildings as detention centres across multiple locations. In Greater Khartoum, through the conflict, the SAF controlled the Hatab detention centre and the Sirkab detention centre, while the RSF controlled multiple detention centres across the capital including the Al-Saliha 50 department detention centre, the Dar Al-Tawba detention centre (known as Soba prison), the former family and child protection department converted into a detention facility, the Al Nakeel police station, the Riyadh detention centre and an unofficial detention site in Omdurman.145 In RSF-controlled areas, homes, schools, and abandoned government buildings were frequently used as makeshift detention sites.146

UN OHCHR confirmed at least ten deaths in custody of individuals detained by both the RSF and the SAF between January and June 2025, ‘including a well-known Sudanese footballer, volunteer medics, and local humanitarian volunteers.’147 Accounts from Soba prison indicated that between four and ten detainees died daily, ‘and on some days up to eighty, largely due to malnutrition and treatable illnesses.’ Bodies were reportedly removed daily by trucks and buried at undisclosed locations.148 In Wad Madani prison, a cholera outbreak reportedly resulted in the deaths of up to 300 detainees.149

Some former detainees reported having witnessed mass executions. It has been estimated that more than 500 people have died in custody since the start of the war.150

Large-scale burial sites were reportedly uncovered in Khartoum North (Bahri) and Omdurman, including at a former RSF base in Garri and a school in Al-Salha, where hundreds of detainees allegedly died as a result of torture, starvation, or denial of medical care.’151

Conditions in both formal and informal detention facilities remained harsh regardless of the detaining party, and were characterised by overcrowding, insufficient food and water, no access to medical care despite widespread disease and torture. SHRH indicated that the RSF were using detention as part of a broader strategy of ethnic cleansing, which was mostly directed against Darfur’s non-Arab communities.152

Testimonies collected by HRW between June 2025 and February 2026 indicated ill-treatment against detainees, included women, by the SAF and its affiliated groups in areas retaken from the RSF, including Khartoum, Al Jazirah, Gedaref, Red Sea, and Northern states.153

Both factions employed severe beatings to extract forced confessions and held individuals in prolonged detainment without trial.154 Testimonies recounted the deliberate execution of detainees in front of others to instil fear. In one case, a nine-year-old boy was shot dead during an RSF interrogation session, while survivors were forced to watch and threatened with the same fate.155

SAF-run facilities, including military camps in Rufaa and Wad Madani, were ‘used for coercive interrogations.’ Former detainees described severe conditions in RSF detention, including prolonged incommunicado detention, systematic beatings, electric shocks, deprivation of food and water, and the withholding of medical treatment. 156

For additional information on detention of women and girls, see Section 2.6.2. (d) on detention.

UN OHCHR received numerous accounts of ‘torture and other forms of ill-treatment’ in places of formal and informal detention, which included severe beatings, electric shocks, burning inflicted with heated metal rods, sexual violence, and torture involving prolonged suspension.157 The ACHPR also documented the use of beatings against civilians by both the SAF and the RSF. These beatings often occurred during arrests, detention and random searches and seizures. 158 The beatings appeared to be an exertion of power to force civilians to comply with combatants’ demands and to punish non-compliance. They also served as an interrogation technique.159 An investigation by the SHRH reported that both the SAF and the RSF were implicated in the torture of civilians. The RSF, in particular, was reportedly torturing civilians through ‘beatings, starvation, acts of humiliation and degradation and psychological abuse.’160

The ACHPR received reports about the use of electrocution by the RSF to torture civilians. On 25 January 2025, the SAF tortured a victim to death by electrocution and poured nitric acid on his wounds.161 In August 2025, the Committee for Justice (CFJ), an independent human rights monitoring and advocacy group,162 documented instances of victims ‘being tied to trees for days, shackled with heavy iron chains, and subjected to repeated beatings’ by the RSF.163

Numerous videos circulating on X, as reported by the SHRH, provided evidence of various torture methods used by the RSF against detainees, civilians, and opposition members. These recordings depict individual being ‘beaten with metal rods and lashes, buried alive, burned with heated objects or chemicals, starved, subjected to prolonged psychological torment under indefinite detention, and sexually assaulted’. Other reported methods included ‘forcing detainees into stress positions, administering electric shocks, and conducting mock executions’.164 For additional information see section 2.1 on Perceived political opponents and section 2.5 on Ethnic groups.

Multiple sources indicated that comprehensive statistics on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Sudan were lacking and all confirmed that GBV was widespread in active conflict areas.165 While girls and women were primarily targeted, men and boys were also affected.166 According to UNICEF’s data, approximately 66 % of child rape involved girls and 33 % involved boys.167 Survivors frequently bear cultural blame within Sudan’s patriarchal society, exposing both male and female survivors and their families to severe stigma, shame, and social exclusion.168 For more information on conflict related sexual violence against women and girls, see section 2.6.2. (a) Conflict Related Sexual Violence (CRSV).

The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) noted that there were documented SGBV cases affecting men and boys in Darfur, Al Jazirah and Khartoum, although no clear attribution to a specific actor was made. One reported case involved an assault perpetrated by a soldier affiliated with the SPLM-N-al-Hilu. Men attempting to protect women and girls from sexual violence, frequently faced violence themselves. According to the organisation, documented cases involving men and boys were limited as survivors often requested for their testimonies not to be recorded or shared. This has been particularly observed in Darfur and Al Jazirah, where survivors have explicitly requested that their cases remained undocumented.169 Underreporting was reportedly due to shame, fear of prosecution through anti-sodomy laws, or rejection by families.170

Trafficking in human beings presents various forms, including sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced marriage, forced labour,171 recruitment of child soldiers or recruitment of children to commit crimes.172 A definition of ‘trafficking in human beings’ is provided in the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.173

In 2021, the transitional Sudanese authorities launched the 2021-2023 national action plan to combat trafficking in human beings.174 The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 175 however, reported that the military coup of October 2021 resulted in the postponement of the roll-out of the National Action Plan.176

In August 2025, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) provided assistance to victims of trafficking in Sudan, having identified 312 victims of trafficking in eastern Sudan. The UNHCR report provided information about security operations in Kassala state that resulted in the arrest of persons ‘with alleged links to smuggling and human trafficking.’177 Another operation of the Sudanese security forces resulted in the arrest of traffickers in human beings and the release of 65 victims in eastern Kassala in September 2025.178 In November 2025, the UN reported on trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation and slavery and the recruitment and use of children as fighters in RSF-controlled areas in and around El Fasher.179 The report echoed the findings of a previous year report about the increase of trafficking in persons, particularly involving women and girls.180

In a March 2026 Child Protection Brief, UNHCR provided information on young Sudanese refugee boys and girls taking irregular routes to Europe through traffickers and smugglers via South Sudan, noting that the risks are ‘particularly severe for unaccompanied and separated children who continue to be highly vulnerable to exploitation both within South Sudan and across border’.181 A 2024 report on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking (MSHT) by Global Partners Governance (GPG),182 found that precarious living conditions affecting Sudanese refugees in the region – particularly in Egypt – together with a rise in the number of unaccompanied or separated Sudanese child refugees resulted in an increase in forced child labour.¹⁸³ As further noted by the GPG, since the onset of the conflict, the overall state capacity ‘to respond to victims of MSHT or to take action against perpetrators’ has been ‘significantly reduced.’ The report also noted that vulnerability to trafficking was more acute among IDPs, returnees and refugees.184

Sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) was committed by members of the RSF in areas under their control, as well as by aid workers in humanitarian settings such as IDP and refugee camps.185 Individuals receiving aid in Sudan were reportedly at a higher risk of SEA by aid workers, with data placing Sudan within the top four riskiest humanitarian settings for SEA globally.186

Children in Sudan are at specific risk of facing trafficking in the form of forced marriage, sexual exploitation, forced recruitment by armed groups and child labour.187 For additional information on child marriage, see section 2.6.2. (b) Forced marriage; for additional information on sexual exploitation, see section 2.6.2. (a) Conflict Related Sexual Violence; for additional information on forced recruitment of children by armed groups, see section 2.7.2. Child soldiers; for additional information on child labour, see section 2.7.3. Labour exploitation.

According to Sudanese criminal law, death sentences may be implemented only after all remedies are exhausted, including a final appeal to the Constitutional Court. As of April 2026, based on the consulted sources, the Constitutional Court was yet to be re-established, precluding the implementation of death sentences.188 Between January and June 2025, at least 108 death sentences were reportedly issued in Sudan, mainly by criminal and anti-terrorism courts, as well as more than 70 long-term and life sentences, mostly for ‘alleged collaboration with the RSF’. Monthly totals averaged between 12 and 15 death sentences ‘issued in multiple states by courts in Al Jazirah (Wad Madani, Managil), Blue Nile (Damazine), Gedaref, Kassala, Khartoum (Omdurman, Karrari), North Kordofan (El Obeid), Northern (Dongola, Merowe and Karima), Red Sea (Port Sudan), River Nile (Atbara, Shendi, Damer), Sennar (Sennar, Sinjah), and White Nile (Kosti, Kenana) states.’189 As of October 2025, the death row section of Singa Prison, Sennar state, was reportedly overcrowded.190 Ayin network noted in March 2026 that ‘courts in Wad Medani had handed down hundreds of death and life sentences to individuals accused of collaborating with the RSF.’191

The legal accusations brought forward were mainly based on provisions contained in the Sudanese Criminal Code (Articles 26, 50, 51, and 186), including “‘conspiracy’, ‘waging war against the state’, and ‘crimes against humanity’”.192

Some of the women imprisoned within SAF-controlled areas, at least 25 of whom were between 19 and 26 years old, had received death sentences on accusations of collaboration with the RSF as of April 2025.193 For additional information on women and girls, see Section 2.6.2. Violence against women and girls.

For additional information see section 2.1 on Perceived political opponents and section 2.5 on Ethnic groups.