Sudan urges ICC to pursue Rapid Support Forces leaders

• Sudan urges the International Criminal Court to accelerate charges against Rapid Support Forces leaders and expand cases to alleged regional backers.
• ICC prosecutor says evidence points to war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, including mass graves.

Sudan has called on the International Criminal Court to move quickly in filing charges and issuing arrest warrants against leaders of the Rapid Support Forces, urging prosecutors to widen investigations to include what it described as regional sponsors.

Speaking before the United Nations Security Council on Monday, Sudan’s chargé d’affaires Ammar Mohammed Mahmoud said the “horrific atrocities” committed by the militia in El Fasher and other cities would not have occurred without military, political, and logistical backing from a regional state.

Read more: Talks between Damascus, Kurdish-led forces 'collapse': Kurdish official to AFP

“Justice will not be achieved unless those who kill, those who fund, and those who arm are all held accountable,” he said.

Calls to end impunity

In a statement obtained by Al Jazeera Net, Sudan said the ICC has clear jurisdiction to prosecute all perpetrators, financiers, and instigators of the crimes, regardless of their location. The government urged an end to what it called a culture of impunity that has encouraged repeated massacres.

The Sudanese delegation voiced “deep disappointment” over delays in issuing arrest warrants related to the 2023 El Geneina massacre in West Darfur, more than two years after the killings. It said earlier action could have prevented what it described as genocidal crimes later repeated in El Fasher.

Read more: US forces kill Daesh leader linked to Syria ambush

Despite the criticism, Sudan reaffirmed cooperation with the ICC prosecutor’s office, citing responses to evidence requests and facilitation of international visits to displacement camps to meet witnesses from the El Fasher attacks.

ICC cites mass graves

On Monday, ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told the Security Council that investigators found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, particularly in El Fasher during late October, when the city was under siege.

Khan said the findings were based on audio and video material and satellite imagery indicating mass killings and attempts to conceal crimes through mass graves. Due to United States sanctions on the court, she delivered her briefing by video link.

She said atrocities committed in El Geneina in 2023 were repeated in El Fasher in 2025. United Nations experts estimate that between ten thousand and fifteen thousand people, most from the Masalit community, were killed in El Geneina.

The Rapid Support Forces began besieging El Fasher in May 2024 and seized full control in October 2025, amid reports of massacres, sexual violence, and summary executions.

War grinds on

Sudan has been engulfed in war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces. The conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced at least eleven million people, and triggered what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst hunger and displacement crisis.