Sudan’s Minister of State for Social Welfare, Salma Ishaq, has accused the Rapid Support Forces of killing 300 women in El-Fasher during the first two days of their takeover of the North Darfur capital.

Ishaq said the women were subjected to sexual assaults, violence, and torture, calling the situation in El-Fasher “a humanitarian catastrophe.” She warned that those attempting to flee toward Tawila face deadly risks, describing the route between the two towns as a “road of death.”

In remarks to Anadolu, the minister said families remaining in the city continue to experience dragging, torture, humiliation, and sexual violence. “What happened in El-Fasher is a systematic act of ethnic cleansing, a major crime in which everyone is complicit through their silence,” she said.

The Rapid Support Forces seized control of El-Fasher on October 26, with local and international organisations reporting massacres against civilians. The capture of the city, they warned, could deepen Sudan’s de facto partition between areas held by the RSF and the national army.

RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, later acknowledged that “violations” had taken place and announced the formation of investigation committees.

The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF, ongoing since April 2023, has killed around 20,000 people and displaced more than 15 million across Sudan, according to UN and local reports.

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