Good afternoon and thank you for joining us at this press conference with the Independent International Fact Finding Mission for the Sudan, which was created by the Human Rights Council in October of 2023 to investigate all alleged violations of human rights that occurred in the context of the ongoing armed conflict.
The mission presented the findings of its latest report to the Human Rights Council here in Geneva this morning, and now they're here to brief the media and take your questions.
We're pleased to have with us all three members of the mission, including the chair, Mr Mohammed Chande Othman, to my right, Miss Joy Ngozi Azelo, and on the far right, Miss Mona Rishmawi.
The experts will start us off with opening remarks and then we'll opening.
We'll open the floor to your questions.
Yeah, Thank you very much.
To begin with, I think it is for a reason that our report is titled Sudan a War of Atrocities.
And these are among the reasons civilians in Sudan are being deliberately shelled, executed, tortured and raped in crimes that amount to war crimes and, in the case of the Rapid Support Forces, to crimes against humanity.
From the earliest days of this conflict, civilians have been deliberately and systematically targeted by both the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces and their respective allies.
Our mission found that civilians, people taking no direct parts in hostilities, were shelled in their homes, at marketplaces, assaulted at checkpoints and on roads as they were tried, as they tried to flee.
The RSF additionally launched ground and air attacks on displacement camps, and both warring parties subjected civilians to arbitrary detention and torture because of the real or perceived officiation With the other side.
The RSF also committed widespread sexual violence.
These are not incidental or accidental harms of the war in Sudan.
Their deliberate strategies of violence against the civilian population.
Norway Is it clearer than in Darfur?
Since the siege of Al Fasha, which began in May 2024, the RSF has repeatedly shelled the city and surrounding areas, displaced more than 470,000 people.
Dismantling camps meant to be places of refuge, have themselves become target.
At Abu Shuk camp, shelling killed over 60 people between January and March this year, and by April shelling intensified almost daily, killing hundreds.
At Zamzam camp, RSF forces not only shelled the community, but launched a ground offensive in April of 2025, executing perceived opponents, burning facilities and killing hundreds, perhaps 1000, mostly women and children.
Entire populations were uprooted once again.
RSF attacks were not limited to camps.
In January this year, RSF fighters opened fire on a civilian convoy near the Chadian border, killing at least 30 people.
Others were captured, beaten and held for ransom.
Civilians were routinely targeted for their ethnic identity, Zagawa, Fool, Masalit and Tuju communities in particular, and for their perceived affiliation with the opposite side.
The SAF and its allies are also responsible for serious violations after retaking areas of Jazeera.
In January 2025, Safa allied forces attacked the Kanabi community, killing civilians, burning homes and using racial slurs in Khartoum.
Andurman and Bahari verified videos show civilians accused of collaborating with RSF beaten and executed by men in army uniform.
These are reprisals, collective punishment and they are unlawful.
Both parties also carried out arbitrary detention.
Arrest and civilians were held without charge.
Cattle from their families beaten, tortured and denied medical care.
Survivors from RSF detention sites described them as slaughterhouses.
In one notorious facility, dozen of detainees died between June and October this year due to torture, malnutrition and lack of medical care.
Some were executed over outright, others were forced into labour or ransom backed by their families in soft run detention facilities.
Civilians were also subjected to torture, including electric shock, sexualized abuse and they were held in cells so overcrowded that some prisoners had to sleep standing.
Sexual and gender based violence also been a defining fixture of this war.
Our mission received overwhelming evidence of rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, abduction, forced nudity and forced marriage.
RSF fighters used sexual violence as a believable tactic of war, often targeting women and girls from non Arab communities.
Survivors told us they were raped at checkpoints, in their homes, in abandoned buildings and in detention.
Girls as young as Twelves were forced into marriage, sometimes on the threat of death to their families.
Men and boys were also subjected to sexualized torture and such acts.
Such acts are rooted in racism, prejudice and impunity, and they they devastate entire communities.
The Mission received information that staff members also committed sexual violence in White Nile, Blue Nile, Khartoum and Northern State, including in detention and checkpoints.
These incidents remained largely underreported.
New survivors fear of reprisals.
The Mission will continue to investigate all allegations of sexual gender based violence attributed to Sudanese Armed Forces.
The Mission finds that this acts by both SAAF and RSF amount to serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights and they include war crimes such as violence to life and person, in particular murder and torture and outrageous on personal dignity including rape, sexualized slavery, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and forced replacement.
In the particular case of RSF, the whited and systematic character of these attacks directed particularly against non Arab communities also constitute crimes against humanity, including murder, persecution on ethnic, political and gender grounds, forced, disabled, displacement and other inhuman acts.
In this war of atrocities, attacks on civilian infrastructure continues to escalate.
Hospitals, market, water and electricity, the lifeline of civilian survivor, have been deliberately shelled.
These are not accidents, they are war crimes and in some cases, crimes against humanity.
Civilians in Sudan are not only being killed and displaced, they are also being deliberately deprived of the means to survive.
Our mission has documented A consistent pattern of attacks on civilian infrastructure and an object indispensable for survival.
Hospitals, market water resources, electricity, greed, farmland and humanitarian supplies.
These are life lines and they are being systematically destroyed.
Food systems and essential infrastructure have also been targeted.
The RSF and its allies repeatedly shelled market in Alfasia onboard map and displacement camps.
In Abu Shore camp alone, the market was shelled multiple times between 2024 and 2025, destroying food stalls and killing civilians.
Attacks on livestock market and I'm actually was also was struck twice in July and September 2024, severely damaging the livestock.
These actions were designed not only to terrorise but to deprive entire communities of food.
The SAF has also targeted markets.
In October 2024, air strikes ravaged the Alcoma market near El Fascia, killing civilians, including children and destroying surrounding facilities.
In December, the South shelled and destroyed the Kabeka market clean over 100 civilians.
In March 2025, the South bombed Torah market during peak hours, destroying what was among the last food sources available in the area and killing and injuring hundreds of civilian.
The RSF has also targeted electricity and water system.
RSF drove drone at strikes on Maroa Dam and power station in onboard cost.
Widespread blackouts around Elfa share water facilities and pumps were shelled and destroyed.
Medical facilities and health workers were not left out.
They have suffered relentless attacks by boots wearing parties.
The mission documented a high number of RSF attacks in hospitals, clinics and ambulances have been shelled, raided and looted.
The maternal hospital, for example, was struck repeatedly in May, July, August 2024 and finally in in January 2025 when a drone strike destroyed its emergency and surgical wards, killing more than 70 people.
Across Sudan, over 200 health facilities in Alfasha alone are no longer operational.
Nationwide, fewer than one in four health facilities remain functional.
Millions are left without medical care, including women who are victims and survivors of sexual and gender based violence.
Health workers have been deliberately targeted.
At least 159 doctors and medical staff have been killed, abducted or threatened.
In April, arrested fighters shot 9 staff members of International Relief Clinic in Zanzan and two died later from other injuries.
Humanitarian convoys and aid workers have also come under intense attack.
More than 84 Sudanese aid workers have been killed since the conflict began.
In June this year, a joint World Food Programme and UNICEF convoy carrying food to ELF Asia was struck by a drone attack after being stopped by the RSF.
5 humanitarian workers were killed, injured and critical food supplies destroyed.
The convoyed had been clearly marked and its roots were known.
This was not an accident, it was a direct attack on humanitarian relief.
The consequences are catastrophic.
Sudan is now facing one of the worst hunger emergencies in modern history.
According to the World Food Programme, more than 24 million people, half the population, suffer from acute food insecurity.
Children amongst the hardest hit in displacement camps such as Zazam and Abu Shuk.
Witnesses describe children dying of hunger and dehydration in the street, including people eating animal food.
Poverty has nearly doubled and families who once have livelihoods are now on destitute.
The attacks are not just tragic by products of war, they are deliberate strategies that violate international law.
The mission finds that RSF committed war crimes including pillage, attacks on hospital and use of suspension as a method of war warfare.
Their siege on L fascia and surrounding areas has deprived hundreds of thousands of food, water, medicine and may also constitute crime against humanity of extermination order inhuman act.
The South is also responsible for war crime of indiscriminate attacks.
Infrastructure has been destroyed, hunger weaponized and civilians left without food, water or medicine.
These are deliberate choices made by those waging the war against civilian population.
I would like to do something a bit perhaps different.
What I'd like to do is basically update you or compare what we said last year and what we are saying today where what is the new thing?
So in our September 2024, and that was our first report, we found that both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Response Forces have committed war crimes.
We also concluded that RSF had had also committed crimes against humanity and we signalled out in particular persecution.
At that time, we warned that without action, the situation would escalate.
Now the situation has escalated in our 2025 report, so this year's report, we see a marked change.
The violations not only have continued.
So what we talked about before not only have continued, but they have deepened into systematic tactics that target civilians directly.
3 developments stand out.
One is this reprisal, the issue of reprisal our mission on this report, we found that civilians were targeted by both parties and their respect their both parties and their respective allies because of their real or perceived affiliation with the opposite side.
We heard about in Fasher, but we also which is basically targeting by RSF.
But we also heard and my colleagues spoke about cannabis which is targeting certain communities by SAF for possible or perceived affiliation with with with RSF.
The second issue that deepened a lot is starvation.
So we found that the rapid response forces and their allies engaged in large scale looting, pillage and destruction of objects essential for the survival of the of the population, civilian population, including burning camps and towns and deprived civilians of food, water and housing and housing.
We also feel so and you know the situation that we described in in particular and fashion.
So the fact of the deprivation of food and food production system, targeting food production systems such as farms and so on, but also markets which allow people to access food, actually has led to starvation.
We also found that both parties failed to undertake measures to minimise the impact of these attacks that they are carrying on air strikes and artery attacks on the civilian infrastructures, including markets, as I mentioned.
The third is the extermination angle.
The extermination is really the combination of the mass killings with the effect of the deprivation of access to food and medicine, creating conditions of life that makes it very difficult for the for the civilian population to survive.
That's what we call the extermination angle.
So the attacks and obstruction, if you add to this, the attacks and obstruction on humanitarian aid, so you **** no food, no water, you don't allow food production, you don't you, you don't allow access to, to to food, to markets and so on.
And you don't allow access to humanitarian aid.
So what do you want is to **** the population.
So it's so that the the effect of this is really the crime against humanity is of extermination.
And we make this very clear in our report, and this we say for the first time.
So the difference from last year is therefore clear.
In 2024, we were documenting war crimes and persecution.
In 2025, we concluded that reprisals, salvations and extermination are now deliberate methods of warfare.
Entire communities are being destroyed.
More than 12 million people have been displaced and we heard half of the population suffer hunger and famine.
International law is clear on these crimes, but the Sudanese institutions remain unable or unwilling to act.
Immunities and blanket amnesties persist.
Victims have no confidence in the national justice system.
Impunity continue to fuel the conflict.
We produced a road map for justice and accountability composed of four pillars.
The parties must seize hostilities and commit to peace, lift the sieges.
These are illegal and sexual violence and protect displaced people.
2nd is this other states?
States must expand the arms embargo respected in the 1st place and expand the armed embargo, hold material support to the parties, impose targeted sanctions and deliver humanitarian aid, support the International Criminal Court and create an independent judicial mechanism for Sudan.
The mediators must secure a ceasefire and work towards this end and embed justice and in the in any discussion that and accountability in any discussion that they are having and for the civil society, they must continue to document the violations and support survivors.
This report is therefore is not simply an update.
It signals a turning point about reprisals, starvation and extermination and says these are now at the very heart of the conflict.
The choice of the international community is whether to respond now or allow these crimes to continue unchecked.
Thank you everyone for those important opening remarks.
And now we open the floor to questions.
So we'll start with the room in the front row.
If you could just please identify yourself in the media outlet that you work for.
Thank you for the press conference.
So the, the, the picture is, seems to be Gramer and Gramer and the methods even more worse and and brutal than last year.
And at the same time, there are some stakeholders like Geneva Cole who could resume contacts with the RSF recently.
And apparently first formation on IHL took place recently with the commanders.
So do you consider RSF as a last cause or do you see a bright a glimpse of potential improvement in the in the months to come and and potential reduction in the brutality of their methods?
Well, thank you very much for the question.
Clearly the work of Geneva Cole is very important and I think it's really important that they continue to work.
But honestly, and let's be honest and frank about this, training without accountability doesn't work.
So, so today you train and say don't abuse and rape women and commit and loot and no such.
But there is no price for it.
So, so what's the use these people even even if it's not written black and white and law, everybody knows you cannot rape, you cannot loot, you cannot destroy property, you cannot starve people.
These are basic moral, ethical and legal impediment.
But if there is no accountability, of course they will continue doing it.
So I, I really think the solution is, of course you can, we can explain to people that yes, don't, don't act badly, but like in a domestic system, we say don't steal, don't murder.
But if there is no price for stealing and murdering, then it continues.
And that's the case in international law.
So This is why I think the stressing that this is just not a question of a knowledge deficit.
And the system is about justice and accountability.
We all know what is wrong and what is right.
It's really about the system.
Do we have any more questions from the room, please?
In the front row, Youssef AP Global Media News.
Thank you for giving us this overview.
My question is, do you have any plan to stop the flow of weapons that fueled the conflict in Sudan?
Yeah, Thank you very much for a very pertinent question.
I think the Security Council recognise very clearly the link between the flow of arms and the situation in Darfur from 220032005.
That is why it imposed an arms embargo over Darfur.
Now that arms embargo is being monitored by the Security Council, but it is clear from its own reports and other reports that it is porous.
It is porous and there is evidence of violation of that embargo in Security Council reports.
What we have urged and we will continue to urge is the extension of that Amber's embargo to cover the whole of Sudan.
I think this is point number one.
I think point #2 is should this investigation continue, is to look into those who are benefiting from the flow of arms because it is clear from the material that we have collected that the parties have used since April 20, 23, to now more and more sophisticated weapons.
Now those weapons are procured externally.
And this is an area where we want to probe further to see who is benefiting really from this war.
So I think this is an area pertinent area.
Of course, I think in our position, the primary responsibility is on the warring parties and their associated militia and, and, and, and so this is the primary responsibility.
Then there are those who facilitate, who enable either financially, logistically and so on.
So I think this is where should this investigation continue.
That is a trajectory so that we have a comprehensive analysis and we held to account those who are either complicit or who facilitate really fuelling of this conflict.
Yeah, I think I can add a bit to that to say that it's important and we have reiterated this, that's that the AMSE embargo, the UN Security Council Resolution 1556 be fully implemented and that we uphold the the obligation, the common article one of the Geneva Convention must be respected by all parties.
And as the Chair said, further inquiries, further inquiries and investigation will be continued if our mandate is renewed.
We know that what's going on in Sudan, Sudan is a World War and is is fuelled also by foreign actors, some of whom finance and facilitate the conflict.
We are not naming names down, but we are we, we, we are investigating and we have information, some of which will be further elaborated in the CRP that will be issued later in October.
But the important thing is that the fact finding mission has collected credible evidence, evidence of arms ammunition on armed area vehicles amongst others.
And you know, it's a work in progress, not not done.
And like we said, the important thing is to stop the flow of the arms and then fully implement the UN Security Council Resolution 1556.
OK, we'll go in the back.
Thanks for this briefing.
One is, can you describe your worst fears for what happens next in Al Fashir?
It obviously sounds awful already with children dying of starvation and the other things you have documented.
What are your worst fears for what comes next there?
And secondly, given the gravity of the crimes that you have described, why did you refrain in this report from using the term genocide and what would have to happen in Sudan, in the Sudan context for you to make that determination?
Thank you very much, Emma, for these questions.
I would have liked to speak about my optimism rather than my worst fear.
But so my optimism is that I hope, I hope the war will stop.
People, particularly in in North Darfur has suffered a lot.
In our report alone, you will see that we documented in just in one month, we talked about 800,000 people moving around.
So it's incredible what we, what we have documented.
I wouldn't want to see more suffering of the people there.
The fact that there is isn't sufficient food that people are already resorting to, let's say to unusual ways of eating, including we hear claims of eating food that is not, is not appropriate for, for, for for humans.
So this is this is really our horse feel is that a lot of people will die and there will be a lot of suffering because of this continued war which can be stopped.
I think that's the key point.
It can be stopped and it must be stopped.
Now we used extermination because I think the evidence that we are collecting basically looks at more or less the same kind of violations as genocide, but there is also a political element.
So with extermination you get the same act, the same components, but you actually have also the attack on political grounds.
And actually in Arabic, the 2 terms are very similar.
So I think people, in particular in Sudan, understand the gravity of what we are saying.
And don't forget in terms of the legal framework, we know people often go to the Genocide Convention because that's the only convention that you can actually invoke in the cases of Sudan.
So a lot of what we are talking about is really acts that are taking place where there is ICC jurisdiction.
So there are already criminal acts.
So we are basically not only confining the discrimination if you want, or the attacks on civilians on only on gender or ethnicity, but gender, ethnicity and political grounds.
And you'll find this a lot in the in the report, because we have evidence that people have been targeted because of perceived affiliation of the other side, you know, and that's that's by itself is really very serious.
Just also adding to Mona, what she said on establishment is very clear.
And then we regard to genocide.
Of course, we know the the use of term and especially the particular ingredients in a very particular required to establish a genocide as a crime of genocide, even in international law and the requirement of some judicial pronouncement.
Some of this some of the elements, you know, may be clear and some already triggers so manifest in some racist slurs and and and his speech that my colleague has already, but he's still not exactly, you know, what we can term at this stage that without that judicial pronouncement.
I think for the international community, the the lack of political will and the attention, less attention that is being paid to this war of atrocities going on in Sudan, that even some people don't even know what's going on.
And that the world that we have 24 million people are facing famine, whereas huge number have been displaced, yet is not really wide widely reported.
The the the action by international community in the long run is not in the best interest of anyone.
We are all obligated to protect our collective humanity and the consequences of this war will will, will, will continue even in decades to come.
And it is important that everyone you know joins and for finding a political solution and, and, and a durable peace that is founded on justice and accountability.
Distinct twin pillars, imperative for any for ending impunity and the cycle of conflict that we've seen in Sudan that reinforces this impunity.
Umm, any more questions from the room or online?
Umm, if no more questions that will bring us to the end of this press conference.
Umm, thank you all for joining us, uh today and have a good day.