A U.N. investigation revealed Wednesday that Sudan's Rapid Support Forces carried out mass killings, abducted women and girls, committed gang rapes and used starvation as a weapon during last year's siege and capture of a city, in what it said was a deliberate campaign amounting to genocide.
The Rapid Support Forces, which are battling the Sudanese army in a civil war, committed the crimes in el-Fasher in north Darfur, which they captured last year after a long siege, the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan found.
Survivors described being raped in rooms where bodies of recently killed civilians, including their own family members, were still lying on the ground.
The report found that the RSF and allies committed the war crime of starvation by imposing a prolonged siege on the city, impeding relief supplies, and shelling food production systems.
The RSF has denied such abuses in over three years of civil war, saying the accounts have been manufactured by its enemies and making counteraccusations against them.
