Africa — 2026-07-28

Secret Documentation Teams Race to Record RSF Mass Executions Sexual Violence and Arbitrary Detention Across Darfur as Sudan War Enters Fourth Year

BLUFCovert documentation of RSF atrocities is building a prosecutorial record, not a catalyst for intervention, as no enforcement mechanism exists to translate evidence into accountability or behavioral change.

Rahmatullah Mohammedin Abakar, director of Sudan's National Commission for Human Rights Darfur division, told Al Jazeera that covert NCHR field teams have documented reliable reports of mass graves in el-Geneina and el-Fasher and characterized RSF killings as amounting to genocide 1. Abakar said the NCHR has recorded nearly 4,000 cases of sexual violence across Darfur, with 20 percent of victims under 18, a figure that aligns with a June 2026 UN human rights office report on conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan 1. Abakar said the RSF is holding 1,480 civilians in el-Fasher, including 446 children and 360 women, and roughly 10,000 detainees, 9,000 of them women, at Nyala's Daqris prison 1. He said RSF territorial control, lack of cooperation from the group and its allied militias, and active fighting have obstructed site access and witness protection, and that Al Jazeera's outreach to the RSF for comment went unanswered 1.

Analysis
This documentation effort is building an evidentiary record for eventual prosecution rather than driving near-term intervention, since no enforcement mechanism compels RSF site access or compliance, and the figures on graves, sexual violence, and mass detention rest entirely on a single NCHR official's account, unaudited while fighting continues under RSF's territorial control. The commission has an institutional incentive to present the fullest possible tally, and RSF's unanswered response leaves those figures unchallenged rather than confirmed. International legal experts frame the record as the foundation for future ICC or national proceedings, but that pathway depends on accountability mechanisms that have so far shown no deterrent effect on RSF conduct in el-Fasher and Nyala.

1 sources

Inside the secret battle to document RSF abuses in Sudan - Al Jazeera