A BBC investigation has uncovered evidence suggesting that Sudan’s paramilitary rapid support forces (RSF) systematically targeted and dismantled healthcare facilities in el-Fasher during a prolonged siege and the subsequent capture of the Darfur city a year ago.UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk described the findings as “deeply disturbing”. He said repeated RSF attacks on civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities, constituted serious violations of international humanitarian law and could amount to war crimes.The RSF has rejected the allegations. The group’s health minister dismissed the findings as propaganda, alleging that Sudan’s national army and its allies were attempting to damage the paramilitary force’s reputation.Drawing on accounts from people who were present in el-fasher, the BBC identified details of at least 43 separate attacks on hospitals and other healthcare facilities between May 2024 and October 2025. Some sites were reportedly struck multiple times.International law prohibits attacks on medical facilities and healthcare workers during armed conflicts.Medical workers killed, injured or abductedThe investigation also documents the impact of the conflict on medical personnel in the western Sudanese city. According to the BBC’s data, 120 healthcare workers were injured, 55 were killed and 10 were forcibly disappeared or abducted between April 2023 and October 2025.Dr Muhamed Suliman, a surgeon who worked in el-fasher during the siege, told the BBC that the RSF sought to force hospitals out of operation.“The RSF [were] trying to evacuate the hospitals, to put them out of service because the health system is the cornerstone of any city or any state,” he said.Suliman alleged that attacks were intended to make it impossible for civilians to remain in the affected areas, describing the campaign as intense, deliberate and planned.El-Fasher siege marked a brutal phase of Sudan’s warThe investigation was published a year after the fall of el-fasher, one of the most devastating episodes in Sudan’s civil war, which erupted in April 2023 between the RSF and the country’s military.Both sides have faced accusations of attacking healthcare facilities.In March 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) condemned a bombing at al-Daein hospital in eastern Darfur, an area controlled by the RSF. The attack killed dozens of people and forced the facility to close. Sudan’s military was believed to have carried out the drone strikes, but it denied responsibility.
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Responding to a BBC inquiry, the WHO described the events in el-fasher as “one of the clearest and most severe examples of the wider impact of the conflict on health care in Sudan”.UN investigators have also said the violence in el-fasher bore the “hallmarks of genocide”. The city’s population includes non-Arab communities that have faced attacks amid longstanding ethnic tensions, with Arab militias now forming the backbone of the RSF.The BBC investigation provides a detailed chronology of attacks on healthcare facilities during the prolonged siege, shedding further light on the conflict’s impact on medical services and civilians.