El Fasher, Sudan – On October 28, 2025, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group captured El Fasher, the last SAF stronghold in Darfur, but the victory came at a horrific cost: over 460 patients and companions were reportedly shot dead at the Saudi Maternity Hospital, the city’s sole functioning medical facility, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The UN agency condemned the killings, with Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressing being “appalled and deeply shocked,” while six health workers—four doctors, a nurse, and a pharmacist—were abducted.
The massacre followed a 17-month siege, with RSF fighters storming the hospital on October 27, killing one nurse and injuring three others. Reports from the Sudan Doctors Network and displaced residents describe cold-blooded executions, with patients gunned down in beds and corridors. This atrocity caps a 48-hour killing spree claiming over 2,000 civilian lives, including summary executions, rapes, and ethnic targeting of Fur, Zaghawa, and Berti groups, as documented by Human Rights Watch and the UN.
The fall of El Fasher, home to 300,000, has triggered a mass exodus to Tawila, already sheltering 652,000 displaced. The RSF’s control secures smuggling routes from Libya and Chad, freeing troops for other fronts, but at the cost of genocide accusations. SAF leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan vowed retaliation, while the UN and EU demand investigations and protection for civilians.
