43 Attacks on Healthcare Facilities

A BBC investigation published on October 23, 2026, found evidence that fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary systematically destroyed the healthcare system in el-Fasher, a city in Darfur, western Sudan, during a prolonged siege and takeover a year ago. The BBC documented at least 43 separate attacks on hospitals and healthcare facilities from May 2024 to October 2025—with several sites targeted repeatedly.

The strikes were carried out using artillery shelling and drones, including precision drones. The Saudi Hospital—the last remaining operational facility—was bombed repeatedly up to 25 times over several days, leaving medical personnel to perform Caesarean sections under only the light of mobile phones. South Hospital was raided by the RSF on June 8, 2024: staff members were beaten, and its director general, Izzeldin Ahmed Dawaud Asow, was assaulted until he played dead to survive.

55 Medics Killed, UN Warns of War Crimes

Between April 2023 and October 2025, 120 healthcare workers were wounded, 55 killed, and 10 forcibly disappeared or abducted. More than 460 patients and accompanying persons are believed to have died during hospital raids on October 25, 2025, when the RSF captured the city.

UN (United Nations) Human Rights Chief Volker Türk called the BBC findings 'deeply disturbing' and stated that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities, constitute grave breaches of international humanitarian law that 'may amount to war crimes.' Sudan's civil war erupted in April 2023 between the RSF and the Sudanese military.

RSF Rejects Findings, Calls Them Propaganda

The RSF rejected the BBC findings. The paramilitary group's health minister, Dr. Alaa Eldin Nugud, described the allegations as propaganda and a 'continuation of lies' by the national army and its allies aimed at tarnishing the RSF's reputation.

He also claimed South Hospital was used as a military base—an assertion that the BBC noted was unsupported by independent evidence. The BBC interviewed six doctors who were in el-Fasher during the siege for this investigation.