When War Turned into Revenge: How the Rapid Support Forces Targeted Civilians in Sudan

Sudan Events – Agencies

Since the outbreak of war on April 15, 2023, Sudanese civilians have found themselves trapped in a relentless tragedy that continues to unfold. Ordinary people have borne the heaviest cost—killed, starved, deprived of medicine, and cut off from the outside world. As the conflict deepened, the fighting no longer remained confined to military fronts. Instead, it spread into the very fabric of civilian life through a campaign of retribution waged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from the war’s earliest days until now—a pattern confirmed by investigative reports, satellite imagery, video analysis, and testimonies of survivors.

In the opening weeks of the war, the RSF seemed to rely on surprise, swiftly seizing large swathes of Khartoum during April and May 2023. They stormed government facilities and converted residential neighborhoods into military positions. As the war dragged on, the RSF shifted tactics—abandoning direct confrontation in favor of a scorched-earth strategy. By targeting civilian infrastructure and essential services, they aimed to break morale and punish the population, committing systematic abuses directly against civilians.

The violations did not stop at on-the-ground atrocities in areas under their control. They escalated into deliberate assaults on public infrastructure and basic services across Sudan. Power plants and water stations were repeatedly attacked, while hospitals and shelters were not spared. This reflected a strategic, organized campaign to cripple the state’s infrastructure and strip Sudanese society of its basic lifelines.

Between May and September 2023, major power stations—including Bahri thermal plant and Garri station—were directly shelled, while transmission towers linking Khartoum to Madani were blown up. Satellite images captured during the same period showed a sharp decline in nighttime illumination across the capital, underscoring the scale of systematic destruction. Power cuts were not mere technical failures but deliberate policies. They halted water pumping stations, caused deaths in intensive care units when ventilators stopped working, and drove fuel prices for private generators up by more than 300% by year’s end. Life in the capital’s economy and society ground almost to a halt.

By early 2025, the strategy became even clearer when RSF launched concentrated drone attacks on civilian power facilities.

• Merowe Dam, Sudan’s largest hydroelectric site producing around 40% of the country’s electricity, was repeatedly struck on January 9, 13, and 15, 2025, causing severe structural damage. The blackout triggered cascading failures in water systems, hospitals, and essential services nationwide.
• In the east, Shouq power station in Gedaref state was hit on January 18, 2025, cutting electricity across Gedaref, Kassala, and Sennar simultaneously. The outage paralyzed communications and water networks, coinciding with the critical harvest season.
• In the north, Dongola power station was bombed on January 19, 2025, shutting down supply to large parts of the region.
• In the capital, Khartoum, the attacks escalated further. On May 14, 2025, coordinated drone strikes hit four key power stations in Omdurman—including Merkhiyat and Al-Mahdiyah—causing massive fires and plunging the city into total darkness. Hospitals collapsed, water stopped flowing, and the capital’s economic life was suspended.
• Even Port Sudan, the government’s temporary seat of power, was struck on May 7, 2025. RSF drones targeted a substation, fuel depots, and facilities at the airport. The attack carried grave political and security implications, prompting swift international condemnation from the U.S., the Arab League, and regional states, who warned of a dangerous escalation threatening wider stability.
• Atbara also endured one of the deadliest assaults in April 2025, when its main substation was hit for the fourth time since the RSF campaign began. The strike caused blackouts across Nile River and Red Sea states, sparking explosions and fires that killed ten people and injured more than twenty, many of them technicians and residents near the site.

This chain of attacks revealed a calculated RSF strategy: to paralyze Sudan’s essential infrastructure by crippling power generation across the north, east, center, capital, and main port. The blackouts reverberated through every sector—food security, health systems, water networks, trade, and daily survival. Sudan faced a dual catastrophe: open warfare on the frontlines, and the gradual collapse of civilian life-support systems.

Hospitals were no exception. By December 2023, more than 70% of Khartoum’s medical facilities were out of service, according to union estimates. Some were stormed and militarized, such as Shaab Hospital and the Heart Center, which were shelled in August 2023, destroying emergency wards. Surgeries stopped, maternity and pediatric services vanished, and treatable diseases became deadly. The exodus of hundreds of doctors further compounded the unprecedented health crisis.

Between May 2023 and January 2024, the UN and international organizations repeatedly condemned these practices. Yet the absence of sanctions or investigations left the RSF free to persist unchecked. Independent groups like the “iKAD” investigative team stepped in, using open-source intelligence to document the systematic nature of the attacks. Satellite imagery confirmed destroyed substations and power lines, video evidence pinpointed strike sites, and testimonies from residents highlighted the human toll of prolonged blackouts, hunger, and medicine shortages.

These were not random excesses but a deliberate pattern of violations. Striking power plants, water stations, hospitals, and food warehouses yielded no immediate military gain but directly devastated civilian life. Under international law, such acts constitute war crimes and terrorism. International humanitarian law, enshrined in the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, explicitly prohibits attacks on infrastructure indispensable to civilian survival. Likewise, the 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings criminalizes deliberate destruction of public facilities. UN Security Council resolutions 1373 (2001) and 1566 (2004) classify such acts as threats to international peace and security, obliging states to prosecute perpetrators and cut off their funding.

By disregarding these norms and persistently targeting civilians, the RSF strategy has revealed its true character: a war of vengeance rather than military confrontation. Electricity has been turned into a weapon to plunge cities into darkness. Water into a tool of thirst. Food into an instrument of submission. Medicine into a death sentence by neglect. Human suffering itself has been weaponized—civilians are not collateral victims but the very targets of war.