By Daphne Psaledakis
Feb 19 (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on three commanders of the Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces over their role in the 18-month siege and capture of al‑Fashir, accusing the group of carrying out systematic and widespread killings.
The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement announcing the sanctions accused the RSF of perpetrating “a horrific campaign of ethnic killings, torture, starvation, and sexual violence” during the siege and capture of al-Fashir.
Darfur’s al-Fashir fell to RSF forces in October 2025 after a long siege that led to mass killings.
The Treasury said that once the city was captured in October, RSF fighters accelerated systematic and widespread killings, detentions, and sexual violence, leaving no survivor, including civilians, unharmed. The Treasury accused the group of engaging in a systematic campaign to destroy evidence of mass killings by burying, burning and disposing of tens of thousands of bodies.
More than 100,000 were estimated to have fled al-Fashir since late October after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces took control there following an 18-month siege that plunged the city into famine.
Survivors reported ethnically-motivated mass killings and widespread detentions during and after the takeover. Many people remain unaccounted for in al-Fashir and surrounding areas.
“The United States calls on the Rapid Support Forces to commit to a humanitarian ceasefire immediately. We will not tolerate this ongoing campaign of terror and senseless killing in Sudan,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the statement.
Among those targeted by the Treasury on Thursday were an RSF brigadier general the department said filmed himself killing unarmed civilians, as well as a major general and RSF field commander.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Ryan Patrick Jones; Editing by Caitlin Webber)
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