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Sudanese Paramilitaries Systematically Destroyed Healthcare Infrastructure in El-Fasher

A year after the fall of the city, evidence reveals a calculated campaign by RSF fighters to dismantle medical services and target civilian infrastructure.

Foreign PolicyPublished October 22, 2026 at 11:16 PM
Medics at el-Fasher's Saudi Hospital in December 2024 performing a C section on the day the facility was bombed.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group systematically dismantled the healthcare system in El-Fasher, Darfur, during a brutal siege that culminated in the city's takeover last year.

Evidence gathered from field sources indicates that between May 2024 and October 2025, at least 43 separate attacks were carried out against hospitals and medical sites.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk characterized these findings as deeply disturbing, noting that the targeting of civilian health infrastructure represents a serious violation of international humanitarian law that may amount to war crimes.

Medical professionals on the ground described a deliberate, planned effort to force the closure of facilities, with doctors reporting that RSF fighters used drones to track patients and shelled buildings repeatedly.

The human toll of this campaign was severe, with data showing 55 medical workers killed, 120 injured, and 10 abducted between April 2023 and October 2025. One surgeon, Dr. Izzeldin Ahmed Dawaud Asow, recounted being beaten by fighters who used ethnic slurs before he narrowly escaped by feigning death.

While the RSF has dismissed the findings as propaganda and alleged that medical facilities were being utilized as military bases by the Sudanese Armed Forces, investigators found no independent evidence to support these claims.

The conflict, which has seen both sides accused of attacking health facilities, has left the region in a state of humanitarian crisis, with UN investigators noting that the violence in El-Fasher bore the hallmarks of genocide.

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