The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of Sudan's two main warring parties, targeted, abused, and killed people with disabilities during and after their October 26, 2025, takeover of El Fasher, North Darfur's capital, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Rapid Support Forces singled out people because of their disabilities, accused people with physical disabilities of being injured combatants, and mocked others as "insane," and told them they were not "complete," survivors and witnesses said. Targeted killings of civilians or others not participating in a conflict, including those with disabilities, are war crimes, as is subjecting them to cruel, humiliating, and degrading treatment or similar outrages. When committed as part of a widespread attack on the civilian population, these acts may constitute crimes against humanity.
"The Rapid Support Forces treated people with disabilities as suspects, burdens, or expendable," said Emina Ćerimović, associate disability rights director at Human Rights Watch. "We heard how they accused some victims, particularly those missing a limb, of being injured fighters and summarily executed them. Others were beaten, abused, or harassed because of their disability with fighters mocking them as "insane" or for not being a "complete person.""
Human Rights Watch interviewed 22 survivors and witnesses from El Fasher between December 2025 and February 2026, including remote in-depth interviews inside Sudan and interviews with people with disabilities who fled to eastern Chad. Human Rights Watch also interviewed eight disability rights activists from other parts of Sudan who described similar RSF abuses in other parts of country.
The Rapid Support Forces took control of El Fasher on October 26, 2025, after an 18-month siege. As civilians attempted to flee, Rapid Support Forces attacked them, killing thousands. People with disabilities faced particular difficulties escaping and were at times singled out for abuse, extortion, and execution.
A 33-year-old man who uses crutches for a physical disability acquired from an explosive weapon attack in December 2024, said RSF fighters captured him and about 50 others, including women and children, as they tried to flee the city on October 26, and interrogated them.
"The RSF considered everybody who was missing a hand or a limb to be a soldier," the man said. He said that RSF fighters also relied on skin color and accent to decide whether they were civilians, or members or supporters of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which RSF is fighting for control of the country. He said RSF fighters used machine guns and AK-style assault rifles to execute more than 10 people, the majority with physical disabilities, in front of the group.
The 33-year-old said he negotiated with the fighters to allow detainees to call their families to seek ransom payments. One fighter responded: "You are already weak and shattered in pieces, your family wouldn't want you anyway."
He was detained for 4 days and released after his family paid 17 million Sudanese pounds and he transferred 13 million Sudanese pounds from his bank account (totaling approximately US$8,830).
A 29-year-old female nurse said she saw RSF fighters kill a young man with Down syndrome, whom the fighters referred to as "insane," a blind child, and a younger woman with a physical disability who could not walk, as civilians fled on October 26.
Sudanese disability rights activists documented additional cases in which RSF fighters killed people with disabilities because of their disabilities. Zainab Salih, former head of the Association of People with Disabilities in South Darfur, said she spoke with a father whose 14-year-old son with a physical disability was executed as they tried to flee on October 26 because RSF fighters claimed he was "slowing other people down." Before executing him, she said, RSF fighters took his wheelchair.
Two other disability rights activists provided similar accounts of the Rapid Support Forces killing people with disabilities in other parts of Sudan during the conflict, with a family member saying an RSF fighter said, "let us help you get rid of them."
People with disabilities also experienced other forms of abuse often based on ethnic targeting. A 31-year-old man who acquired a disability after being injured in shelling at Naivasha market in El Fasher, said RSF fighters beat and whipped him while he was sheltering at his uncle's house following the fall of the city.
Fighters repeatedly accused him of being an SAF or Joint Forces soldier or sympathizer because of his disability and his ethnic background, calling him a "falangay," a derogatory term for non-Arab ethnic groups.
Witnesses and survivors described RSF fighters looting fleeing civilians, including of assistive devices or their only means of mobility, such as the wheelbarrows used by the families of people with disabilities to transport them.
Witnesses also described people with disabilities being left behind. A 30-year-old woman fleeing with her 3 children, said: "What's stayed with me the most is the image of wounded people, including people with disabilities, whose families were trying to evacuate along that road, but they were not able to, [so they] were left behind and no one knows their fate."
Those who reached Tawila, also in North Darfur, described fleeing under extreme conditions, often without assistive devices or transportation. Some crawled, or family members carried them. Others were separated from their families or support networks, making escape and survival in displacement significantly harder.
They said they lacked access to assistive devices, medical care, and psychosocial support. People with disabilities and their families said the facilities in the Tawila camp for internally displaced people, including bathrooms, were inaccessible for people with physical disabilities.
The 31-year-old man mentioned above, who now advocates for people with disabilities in the Tawila camp, said he has repeatedly asked humanitarian organizations for disability-inclusive services. "The concept here is that if you have a disability, it's on your family to provide help," he said.
Under international humanitarian law, parties to a conflict must distinguish, at all times, between civilians and combatants, and civilians may never be the target of attack. People with disabilities who are not directly taking part in hostilities are entitled to full protection from deliberate attacks and ill-treatment. Deliberate attacks on and ill-treatment of civilians with disabilities are war crimes and may constitute crimes against humanity.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Sudan has ratified, obliges states to ensure the protection and safety of people with disabilities in situations of risk, including armed conflict. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2475 says that parties to armed conflict should protect persons with disabilities and ensure their full inclusion in humanitarian responses.
The United Nations Security Council should urgently act to prevent further atrocities in Sudan against civilians including those with disabilities, Human Rights Watch said, including by sanctioning the Rapid Support Forces leadership for ongoing atrocities, and publicly calling on the force's backers, notably the United Arab Emirates, to end their support to the Rapid Support Forces.
Members of the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council should work together to secure the deployment of a civilian physical protection mission in Sudan. Humanitarian agencies should ensure that assistance is accessible and inclusive of people with disabilities, including by providing assistive devices and targeted support.
"Human Rights Watch has documented abuses against people with disabilities in armed conflict around the world for over a decade," Ćerimović said. "But this is the first time we have documented this type and scale of targeted abuse, including killings, of people with disabilities because of their disabilities. Governments and the UN Security Council should act now to stop these crimes and ensure accountability."
Killings and Abuse
A 29-year-old female nurse from El Fasher described a Rapid Support Forces fighter calling to another and saying, "Come and see this majnun ['insane' person]," referring to a young man with Down syndrome. Fighters ordered his sister, who was carrying him on her back, to put him down and they executed him. After killing her brother, they tied her hands, covered her face and took her away. Human Rights Watch ongoing research has found that many women and girls were abducted to be raped or held ransom.
The nurse also said RSF fighters shot and killed a young woman with a physical disability, as well as her mother who had been carrying her. She also described fighters ordering a woman carrying a blind teenage boy on her back to put him down. "She said 'he cannot see'," the nurse said. "They immediately shot him in the head."
The 31-year-old man mentioned above described how, in September 2025, a driver abandoned him and his mother 20 kilometers from Hilat Al-Shaikh, a village they were trying to reach on their way to Tawila. His mother tried to push him in a wheelbarrow but became exhausted. He urged her to go ahead and pleaded with passing travelers to help take him back to El Fasher. They initially refused.
"They told me if the RSF saw me in that condition [with amputations], they would think I was SAF and cause them problems," he said. Eventually, a man driving a donkey cart allowed him to climb aboard, and he returned to El Fasher where he was reunited with his father.
He and his father fled on October 26 under heavy shelling as the Rapid Support Forces took control of El Fasher. He was separated from his father and sustained additional injuries.
He managed to get back to his uncle's house in El Fasher, but RSF fighters broke into the house a few hours later and accused him of being a member of a coalition of Darfuri armed groups aligned with the military because of his disability and ethnic background. He said:
"They started questioning me, 'Are you a Joint Forces member?' I told them I was sick in the hospital, I told them how I got injured while retrieving my goods at the market in August. They started arguing with me that I am a soldier. … They beat me for 20 minutes with a whip all over my body. I was bleeding. … A soldier said they need to kill me, and why did I stay, and that I should have left earlier. They kept asking if I was SAF or a Joint Forces member, I kept saying no."
In February 2026, he said that he still had scars on his arms from the beating and showed photographs to Human Rights Watch.
Upon reaching Tawila, he was reunited with his mother. When Human Rights Watch interviewed him in February 2026, he still had no information about his father's whereabouts.
Abandonment
A 39-year-old man described fleeing but having to leave behind his 41-year-old brother with a physical disability who could not walk. "My brother said to us, 'I am finished, I will die here, please just leave with your children and leave me here.' We couldn't take him, there were no cars, no camels."
The same witness described seeing injured people and people with disabilities asking for help while trying to flee El Fasher on October 27, "There were injured people on the ground, people who had lost limbs, asking for help, and you just couldn't help them."
A 22-year-old man who was injured in an attack in February 2025 was abandoned by the person carrying him as they fled El Fasher with a group of civilians. "He put me down and told me he would come back. I don't know what happened to him, whether he was killed or arrested."
Unable to move without support, he was eventually arrested by the Rapid Support Forces, detained for 10 days and released only after paying 15 million Sudanese pounds (about US$3,600).
Looting Assistive Devices
A 40-year-old teacher with a hearing disability was fleeing toward Garni from El Fasher in October 2025 when RSF fighters stopped and searched civilians on the road, confiscating personal belongings.
"They started searching all of us, stealing everyone's nice watches and phones," he said. "They found my hearing aid, asked what it was. I told them, and that it's really important for me, but they didn't believe me, and they took it away. They threatened to shoot me so I just let them take it."
He said fighters also stole his clothes and phone.
Life in Displacement
A 47-year-old woman in an internal displacement camp fled with her 15-year-old daughter, who has physical and speech disabilities, and her 79-year-old mother, who also has a physical disability.
"Before the war, we used to go to physical therapy [for my daughter]," she said. "There is no such thing any longer, no technician or doctor to follow up with us."
She said bathrooms and other facilities in the camp are inaccessible for people with physical disabilities: "There is no separate place for [people with disabilities] for bathrooms or food. My mother and daughter cannot go to these [inaccessible] bathrooms. We need to take them."
Another mother of five children, including a 6-year-old daughter with a physical disability, said her daughter needs an assistive device and specific food that she cannot get in the Tawila camp for internally displaced people: "She needs an assistive device, otherwise she is just laying around. She only eats soft food, and it's hard for me to find the specific food she needs. I am trying my best."
