Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militias summarily executed at least 28 ethnic Massalit and killed and injured dozens of civilians on May 28, 2023, in Sudan's West Darfur state, Human Rights Watch said today. Many of these abuses committed in the context of the armed conflict in Sudan amount to war crimes.
Several thousand fighters of the RSF, the independent military force that has been in armed conflict with the Sudan military since April 15, and Arab militias attacked the town of Misterei, home to tens of thousands of mainly ethnic Massalit residents. The assailants killed men in their homes, on the streets, or in hiding, and fired on fleeing residents, killing, and injuring women and injuring children. These forces then pillaged and burned most of the town, forcing thousands of residents to flee across the border to Chad.
"Since the conflict in Sudan broke out in April, some of the worst atrocities have been in West Darfur," said Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The mass killings of civilians and total destruction of the town of Misterei demonstrates the need for a stronger international response to the widening conflict."
Sudan's warring parties should stop attacking civilians and allow safe aid access. The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) should investigate these attacks as part of its Darfur investigation.
During a research trip in June, Human Rights Watch interviewed 29 survivors of the Misterei attack who had fled into neighboring Chad. An analysis of satellite imagery and fire detection data shows that six other towns and villages besides Misterei in West Darfur, including Molle, Murnei, and Gokor, were also burned down. Names of people interviewed are withheld for fear of reprisals.
Human Rights Watch also interviewed 37 refugees from other parts of West Darfur, including El Geneina and the villages of Tendelti, Adikong, and Molle, who described similar abuses. Widespread and apparently deliberate fire damage was visible in El Geneina, primarily affecting places where thousands of people displaced during previous attacks were living. Human Rights Watch shared its preliminary findings with an advisor to the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, asking questions regarding RSF deployments and steps taken to hold perpetrators to account, but had received no response at time of writing.
West Darfur has been the epicenter of cycles of violence and displacement against non-Arab communities since 2019. In mid-April, as fighting raged elsewhere in Sudan, the Sudan Armed Forces and the local police force stationed in Misterei left the town. In mid-May, the RSF and Arab militias clashed with the town's Massalit self-defense group.
On May 28, the RSF and Arab militias, many on motorcycles, horses, or pickup trucks, surrounded the town and clashed with the Massalit fighters. The assailants, armed with assault rifles, recoilless rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and vehicle-mounted machine guns fired on town residents who tried to flee.
"The Rapid Support Forces and Arabs shot at us from behind," said a 76-year-old man. "I saw three people running, being shot at, and fall to the ground near a grocery store."
The attackers pursued people who sought safety in schools and the mosque. Many women and children, and some members of the self-defense group wounded earlier, fled to a school complex, on the northern edge of the town, where the assailants repeatedly entered classrooms looking for men and summarily executed those they found.
Two women who had sheltered in a school said that the attackers summarily executed three men and sprayed a classroom with bullets, severely injuring three women and two children. "They were asking about the youth … protecting the village," one woman said. "Where are the men? Where are the boys? We want all of them! We want to kill them! Why didn't you just flee and leave the country? Why are you still here? What are you waiting for?"
Throughout the day, the attackers looted residents' property, stealing livestock, seeds, money, gold, mobile phones, and furniture.
After pillaging homes, the assailants set them ablaze. "The whole town was covered in smoke," said a 35-year-old nurse. Satellite imagery analysis confirmed the near total burning of the town, particularly the residential areas.
The attacking forces withdrew that evening and residents began the search for survivors and bodies on the streets and inside houses and schools. The remains of at least 59 people were buried in mass graves. Local officials said 97 people were later confirmed to have been killed, including self-defense force members. Human Rights Watch recorded the killing of at least 40 civilians, including a woman, and injuries to 14 civilians, including 5 women and 4 children.
Since the outbreak of the conflict in April, over 300,000 people have been displaced within West Darfur alone, according to the United Nations, and about 217,000 have fled to Chad. About 98 percent of those registered arriving in Chad have come from the Massalit community. About 17,000 refugees from Misterei remain in Gongour, Chad, near the border. The humanitarian response in Chad remains significantly underfunded.
Relief operations largely stopped in late April in West Darfur following attacks on humanitarian aid and property, as well as widespread insecurity in the region. An aid worker said that Darfur has been "largely cut off from new assistance."
The UN Security Council should call for immediate safe and unhindered humanitarian access throughout Darfur. Security Council member countries, other governments, the European Union, and the African Union (AU) should urgently adopt and enforce targeted sanctions against those responsible for serious abuses regardless of their position or rank.
The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC should investigate the attack on Misterei and other villages and towns in West Darfur as part of its Darfur investigation. The Prosecutor should highlight investigation plans during his scheduled briefing to the Security Council on July 13.
"The accounts of those who survived recent attacks in West Darfur echo the horror, devastation, and despair of Darfur 20 years ago," said Jean-Baptiste Gallopin. "The ICC Prosecutor should investigate these heinous abuses, while Sudan's international and regional partners should sanction RSF and Arab militia leaders responsible for these attacks."
For details of the abuses in Misterei on May 28,2023, please see below. The names of those interviewed have been withheld for their protection.
Abuses in West Darfur
The magnitude of the violence since April in Darfur is significant even in a region that has witnessed countless atrocities against civilians for two decades. Over 400,000 Darfuris were already refugees in Chad as a result of earlier violence.
West Darfur experienced large-scale abuses in the 2000s including ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Since 2019, Massalit and other non-Arab communities, many displaced since the conflict of the early 2000s, have borne the brunt of renewed attacks by Arab militias, supported by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Sudanese government security forces, responsible for protecting civilians since UN/AU peacekeeping forces pulled out of Darfur following the termination of its mandate in late 2020, have repeatedly failed to protect targeted communities. Self-defense groups have emerged in some Massalit communities.
The town of Misterei, 42 kilometers south of El Genaina, West Darfur's capital, and 7 kilometers from the border with Chad, is home to about 46,000 people. Its residents are from largely farming communities, primarily Massalit, but also ethnic Zaghawa and Bargo, and nomadic Arab communities. The town has at least six schools, a hospital, a police station, a courthouse, a stadium, and a market that serves as the commercial hub for area villages.
In 2020, tensions between the Massalit population and Arab neighbors resulted in an earlier attack on Misterei. Local sources said Arab militias attacked three neighboring villages in May and Misterei in July, in retaliation for the alleged killings of Arab civilians by armed Massalit. In July 2020, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the West Darfur Doctors Committee reported that hundreds of Arab militiamen attacked Misterei, resulting in the death of at least 60 Massalit civilians. The attack followed the formation of an armed Massalit self-defense group in the town months earlier.
In late April 2023, following the outbreak of the conflict in Khartoum between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, some local police and the army garrison withdrew from Misterei without informing local leaders or residents. Residents said their departure left the town vulnerable. Previously, "attackers would often not progress further in[to] town," said one resident. In an attack, the "local community [would] find safe refuge inside the army garrison."
On May 26 and 27, RSF and the Arab militias began to mobilize on the outskirts of the town. Residents said they harassed people who ventured out of the town and clashed with a Massalit armed group positioned on the Dorondi mountain, 8 kilometers west of Misterei. Another self-defense group was mobilized on the Shorrong mountain, about 450 meters southeast, to protect the town. Residents said they began to fear that the town itself could come under attack.
May 28 Attack
The attack began shortly after sunrise on May 28. The assailants came in several waves from the western side of the town, flanking it to the north and the south.
Residents said that the attacks appeared to be coordinated. Those on foot entered houses, followed by those on motorbikes, who chased residents on the streets. RSF pickup trucks reportedly secured neighborhood entrances and exits and shot at civilians fleeing, even from a distance.
The assault started at the Shorrong mountain where self-defense group fighters had deployed. A fighter, 30, who was there, said:
Around 5:30 a.m., the fighting started at our position, from the southwest. We only had Kalashnikovs [assault rifles]. Arabs and the RSF came in large numbers, first on foot [and] then on motorbikes: the first wave [was] around 400 men on foot; the second wave, 150 to 200 motorbikes; the third wave, six RSF vehicles which I recognized by their emblem; and [in] the last wave [there] were a lot of horses.
The Massalit fighters had split into groups of 7 or 15 fighters, across several locations in town, people interviewed said. At least three vehicles with fighters from the Sudanese Alliance, a predominantly Massalit armed group headed by the late West Darfur governor Khamis Abbakar, were positioned near the market.
Witness accounts suggest that the RSF and Arab militias quickly overran the Massalit fighters, forcing their retreat. Many were killed. Attacks continued through the morning, with a lull around early afternoon, and resumed briefly mid-afternoon.
Human Rights Watch was unable to verify the number of fighters in the town itself that day and how many were killed during the fighting.
Unlawful Killings and Injuries
Residents described scenes of panic and horror as the attackers spread across the town while fleeing civilians filled the streets. The assailants shot people on the streets, including women and children, and stormed houses.
A man, 40, said that at about 7 a.m. he opened the door of his house after hearing gunshots in his neighborhood of El Shati and saw Arab men armed with assault rifles, machine guns, and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), going door-to-door and shooting wantonly: "Two RSF vehicles [stopped] near my house and shot at those fleeing," he said. As an RSF fighter assumed a shooting position, "someone cheered him…: 'Kill the slave! Kill the slave!"
He said Arab militiamen then entered his house and shot his cousin "many times, in the chest," killing him. He said he then jumped over the wall and ran for safety.
Another man, 60, said that he opened the door to his house that morning and "saw Arabs on motorbikes shoot two young men on [his] doorstep who were running for their lives." One of the victims died instantly, he said, and he tried to help the other, whose arm was injured. But "Arabs on foot appeared … entering houses and shooting inside," so he also had to flee. "The Arabs shouted at me to stop but I didn't. They shot at me, and one bullet went through my right shoulder."
Women, children, and some men - including injured men - began to flee to the town's main school complex. School buildings in Darfur are often seen as a safe place during attacks.
"The number of attackers around us was so high," said a 20-year-old woman who ran with family members toward a school with "a huge number" of people. The attackers shot and killed three people running around her. She said:
Khadija [had] a horse and was holding the horse to take it with her to the school. They stopped her and told her: "You leave that horse!" but she refused, and they shot her. And when they looked to that man [an imam], they … shot him and they shot my brother.
She said the assailants shot both her brother and Khadija in the head.
A woman in her thirties said that when she opened the door to her house, she saw "so many Arabs. A group of them looked at me and shot in the air: 'Get out!' Another one asked: 'Where are the men? Where are the weapons? We don't want anyone here!" After she fled with 10 children of her family, the assailants shot and wounded her daughter and grandson:
[The assailants] were running and we were running, too. There were more of them, some who were running behind us, and some we came across, who were in front of us. So, they were surrounding us … They were shooting … When we … reached the Adwa neighborhood … they shot my daughter and my grandson.
A bullet hit her 18-year-old daughter in the hip from behind, she said, while her 3-year-old grandson was shot in the thigh.
Another man, 76, said he saw Arab attackers shoot three men from behind while they were running on the street in the Al-Emtidad neighborhood. Separated from his family in the ensuing stampede, he hid inside the Atik mosque, near the school complex:
