Active Genocide Alert - Sudan - Update 1

As Sudan’s civil war enters its third year, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security is once again compelled to speak plainly about this violent contest for state power between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that has mutated into a genocidal campaign, particularly in the Darfur region. As international institutions still continue to flounder, civilians—especially non-Arab communities like the Masalit, Zaghawa, and Fur—are being exterminated. These brutalities are not incidental, but intentional. They fit squarely within the legal and historic framework of genocide.
The Lemkin Institute previously addressed this in our “Active Genocide Alert” in late 2023, the same year the conflict began, as the pattern of violence—widespread and systematic attacks on threatened groups, accompanied by clear indicators of intent—made it evident that the atrocities unfolding in Sudan are part of a genocidal process.
Since the outbreak of violence on April 15, 2023, the SAF and the RSF have killed between 61,000 and 150,000 people. The war has displaced more than 12 million people, making Sudan the site of the largest and fastest-growing displacement crisis in the world. More than 30 million people are now in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, while famine spreads rapidly across the country.
Both the SAF and RSF have shown flagrant disregard for international humanitarian law. Widespread violations–including the targeting of civilians, systematic destruction of infrastructure, obstruction of humanitarian aid, and the weaponization of sexual violence–have been consistently documented. In West Darfur, the RSF and allied militias have carried out ethnically targeted violence, particularly against the Masalit community. The UN estimated that in 2023, RSF-led ethnic violence killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people in West Darfur. In Ardamata, a multi-day RSF rampage killed more than 800 civilians. In North Kordofan, the RSF is responsible for the recent massacre of nearly 300 civilians in villages around Bara. According to reports, RSF soldiers either shot their victims–including children and pregnant women–or burned them alive in their homes. No military targets were present.
Genocide, as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, consists of acts—such as mass killings, serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy a group—commited with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. In Darfur, the evidence increasingly points to such intent on the part of the RSF. The targeted nature of the killings, the use of racial and ethnic slurs, and the systemic destruction of civilian infrastructure and self-declared safe areas for non-Arab groups suggest a campaign not merely of counterinsurgency, but of erasure.
In El Geneina, the neighbourhoods of the Masalit community were razed to the ground. Testimonies from survivors describe RSF fighters using racial epithets such as “Zurga”, bragging of their intent to “Arabize” the region, and systematically targeting men, women, and children for execution, sexual violence, and forced displacement. The massacre in Zamzam camp—long a sanctuary for displaced— exemplifies the strategy of RSF, which is to eliminate civilian concentration of non-Arab people, displace survivors, and erase them from the land.
Satellite imagery, eyewitness reports, and forensic evidence leave little room for ambiguity. These are crimes of intent.
The SAF, for its part, has not engaged in genocidal violence, but has nonetheless committed gross violations of international humanitarian law. Indiscriminate airstrikes on urban areas such as Khartoum, Kordofan, and Wad Madani have destroyed hospitals, markets, and shelters.
The SAF has also imposed sieges that deny food, water, and medicine to civilians—tactics that constitute war crimes and, in some cases, crimes against humanity. Both parties have blocked humanitarian access, weaponized starvation, and escalated ethnic divisions.
The RSF continues to maintain control over large parts of western Sudan, while the SAF has taken control of territory in and around the capital. Despite repeated calls from the UN Security Council for a ceasefire, all mediation efforts have failed. Civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, markets, and aid convoys, have been targeted by both parties, further exacerbating an already dire public health and food security situation. More than 80% of hospitals in conflict zones are non-operational, and outbreaks of cholera and other diseases are spreading rapidly, particularly among displaced populations.
Yet genocide is never a domestic crime alone. It is invariably international in its sustenance and its indifference. The RSF’s funding pipeline depends on Sudan’s gold economy—mines captured during the war and controlled through violent displacement. Much of this gold is smuggled through illicit channels to the United Arab Emirates, where it enters global markets via Dubai. Despite public denials, the UAE has been repeatedly implicated by Sudanese authorities, independent investigators, and journalists as a principal enabler of the RSF. By purchasing conflict gold and serving as a conduit for weapons and logistical support, the UAE has not merely turned a blind eye, but has functioned as a strategic enabler of the RSF’s campaign of atrocities. This makes Sudan’s unfolding genocide as much a product of foreign profiteering and geopolitical rivalry as of local militancy.
Egypt has taken the SAF’s side, driven by fears of instability along its southern border and water insecurity over the Nile. Cairo has allegedly provided intelligence, military coordination, and safe haven to SAF leadership. While Egypt has denied direct military involvement, its political support and logistical facilitation have bolstered the SAF’s capacity to sustain warfare without regard for civilian protection. This is not merely a Sudanese war—it is a proxy war, layered with transnational interest and impunity.
Under the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the international community has both a moral and legal obligation to intervene when a state is “manifestly failing” to protect its population from mass atrocity crimes. That threshold has long been crossed in Sudan. Yet the global response remains paltry.
The United Nations’ failure to prevent this genocide in Sudan is yet another indictment of its chronic inability to act decisively in the face of mass atrocities. Despite early warning signs, repeated briefings, and mounting evidence of systematic attacks against non-Arab communities, the Security Council has failed to take any concrete action to protect civilians.
This paralysis mirrors the UN’s dismal record in preventing previous genocides—in Rwanda, Srebrenica, Darfur, Myanmar, and now Palestine— where the term “grave concern” is substituted for any meaningful intervention until it's far too late. If the UN wants to preserve any of its integrity as a guarantor of international peace and security, the least they can do is take immediate, concrete steps to halt at least one of the ongoing genocides, starting with Sudan. Anything less is complicity by inertia.
This war is not only a political and military catastrophe—it is a human tragedy of monumental proportions. The international community’s failure to act decisively has emboldened those responsible for mass atrocities and obstructed critical humanitarian relief efforts. As the RSF and SAF entrench themselves in long-term warfare, civilians are left to suffer under siege, starvation, and unchecked violence.
We at Lemkin Institute call for:
An immediate nationwide ceasefire.
Unimpeded humanitarian access throughout Sudan and across its borders, in line with international humanitarian law.
Independent, impartial investigations into mass atrocities, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed since April 2023.
International accountability measures, including targeted sanctions and asset freezes against those responsible for directing, enabling, or profiting from mass violence.
A renewed commitment to a civilian-led political transition in Sudan, with justice, accountability, and the protection of human rights at its core.
Sudan stands at the precipice of total collapse. Without urgent and coordinated international action, the suffering of its people will only deepen, and the consequences for regional and global stability will be profound. Decisive measures are essential to prevent further mass atrocities.