The U.S. State Department has accused Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of committing widespread crimes against humanity in 2024, holding them responsible for the majority of abuses against civilians in the war-torn country since the outbreak of conflict in April 2023.
In its annual 2024 reports covering most of the developing world—particularly countries facing exceptional crises such as Sudan—the State Department documented extensive violations.
The report stated that the RSF carried out the vast majority of abuses, particularly targeting critical infrastructure in the medical and public service sectors, alongside gender-based and ethnic violence, starvation tactics, and the besiegement of civilians to prevent their safe passage from conflict zones.
The Sudan chapter of the report detailed forced displacement of civilians from their homes, villages, and towns, killings along ethnic and tribal lines, systematic looting, sexual violence, abductions, enforced disappearances, and ransom-taking—primarily by the RSF and its allied militias in central Sudan and Darfur.
According to the report, published on the State Department’s official website, “The Rapid Support Forces and allied militias committed crimes against humanity and acts of ethnic cleansing in Sudan throughout 2024.” It further noted that “RSF fighters and their allies also committed genocide, including systematic killings of men and boys based on ethnicity.”
The militias targeted fleeing civilians, killing innocents as they tried to escape the violence, while preventing those left behind from accessing life-saving supplies.
The report also criticized bureaucratic obstacles hampering humanitarian aid delivery to populations in need.
It concluded there were “reasonable grounds to believe the RSF committed crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, enslavement, rape, sexual slavery, and similarly grave sexual crimes, as well as ethnically and gender-motivated violations and the forced displacement of populations.”
The report devoted entire sections to RSF assaults on healthcare facilities—documenting attacks on more than 40 hospitals in 2024 alone. The forces looted valuable medicines, medical supplies, power generators, and ambulances. Drawing on UNICEF’s verified reports, it noted that by late August, at least 77 hospitals nationwide had been attacked, leaving more than 70% of health facilities out of service, their supplies depleted and resupply efforts hampered by restricted access.
