اخبار السودان – وطن نيوز
اخر اخبار السودان اليوم – اخبار السودان العاجلة
W6nnews.com ==== وطن === تاريخ النشر – 2026-02-25 21:58:00
(Nairobi) – The Rapid Support Forces, one of the two main parties to the conflict in Sudan, targeted, mistreated, and killed people with disabilities during and after their seizure of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, on October 26, 2025, Human Rights Watch said today. The RSF targeted people because of their disabilities, accused people with physical disabilities of being wounded fighters, mocked others as “crazy,” and told them they were “imperfect,” survivors and witnesses said. Targeted killing of civilians or people not participating in the conflict, including people with disabilities, is a war crime, as is subjecting them to cruel, degrading and humiliating treatment or similar violations. When these acts are committed as part of a broader attack on a civilian population, they may constitute crimes against humanity. “The RSF treated people with disabilities as suspects, burdens, or disposable,” said Emina Širimović, associate director for the rights of persons with disabilities at Human Rights Watch. “We heard how they accused some victims, especially those who lost a limb, of being wounded fighters and executed them arbitrarily. Others were beaten, abused, or harassed because of their disability, and fighters mocked them and called them ‘crazy’ or ‘imperfect.’” Human Rights Watch interviewed 22 survivors and witnesses from El Fasher between December 2025 and February 2026, including in-depth remote interviews inside Sudan and interviews with people with disabilities who fled to eastern Chad. Human Rights Watch also interviewed eight disability rights activists from other parts of Sudan, who described similar abuses by the RSF in other parts of the country. The Rapid Support Forces took control of El Fasher on October 26, 2025, after an 18-month siege. When civilians tried to flee, the Rapid Support Forces attacked them, killing thousands. People with disabilities faced particular difficulties in fleeing, and were sometimes subjected to assault, extortion, and execution. A 33-year-old man who uses crutches due to a physical disability sustained in an attack with explosive weapons in December 2024 said that RSF fighters captured him and about 50 others, including women and children, as they tried to flee the city on October 26, and interrogated them. The man said: “The Rapid Support Forces considered anyone who lost a hand or a limb to be a soldier.” He added that the RSF fighters also relied on skin color and dialect to determine whether they were civilians or members of the Sudanese Armed Forces, which the RSF is fighting to control the country, or supporters of it. He said that the Rapid Support fighters used machine guns and Kalashnikov assault rifles to execute more than 10 people, most of whom were physically disabled, in front of the group. The 33-year-old said he negotiated with the fighters to allow detainees to contact their families to demand payment of ransom. One of the fighters replied: “You are already weak and broken, and your family will not want you anyway.” He was detained for four days and released after his family paid 17 million Sudanese pounds and transferred 13 million Sudanese pounds from his bank account (totaling approximately US$8,830). A 29-year-old nurse said she saw RSF fighters kill a young man with Down syndrome, whom the fighters called “crazy,” a blind child, and a younger woman with a physical disability who could not walk, as civilians fled on October 26. Sudanese disability rights activists have documented other cases in which RSF fighters killed people with disabilities because of their disability. Zainab Saleh, former president of the Union of Persons with Disabilities in South Darfur, said she spoke with a father whose 14-year-old son, who has a physical disability, was killed while trying to flee on October 26 because RSF fighters claimed he was “delaying others.” She said that RSF fighters took his wheelchair before executing him. Two other disability rights activists provided similar accounts of RSF killings of people with disabilities in other parts of Sudan during the conflict, with one member of a family with a disability saying that an RSF fighter said: “Let us help you get rid of them.” People with disabilities were also subjected to other forms of violations, often targeting them on an ethnic basis. A 31-year-old man who was disabled after being injured in the bombing of the Naivasha market in El Fasher said that Rapid Support Forces fighters beat and flogged him while he was taking shelter in his uncle’s house after the city fell. Fighters repeatedly accused him of being a soldier or sympathizer of the Sudanese Armed Forces or the Joint Forces due to his disability and ethnic background, and described him as a “flanqai,” a derogatory term given to non-Arab ethnic groups. Witnesses and survivors described RSF fighters looting fleeing civilians, including assistive devices or the only means of transportation available to them, such as handcarts used by families of people with disabilities to transport them. Witnesses also reported that people left people with disabilities behind. A 30-year-old woman who fled with her three children said: “What remains in my memory most is the image of the wounded, including people with disabilities, whose families were trying to evacuate them along that road, but they were unable to do so.” [لذلك] They were left behind and no one knew their fate.” Those who arrived in Tawila, also in North Darfur, described escaping in harsh conditions, often without assistive devices or transportation. Some crawled, or were carried by family members. Others were separated from their families or support networks, making escape and survival in displacement more difficult. They said they lacked assistive devices, medical care, and psychosocial support. People with disabilities and their families said the facilities in Tawila camp For displaced people, including bathrooms, are not suitable for people with physical disabilities. The 31-year-old mentioned above, who now advocates for people with disabilities in Tawila camp, said he has repeatedly asked humanitarian organizations to provide comprehensive services for people with disabilities. “The prevailing concept here is that if you have a disability, your family must provide you with assistance,” he said. “Under international humanitarian law, parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants, and civilians should never be the target of attacks.” They participate directly in hostilities and receive full protection from deliberate attacks and ill-treatment. Intentional attacks on and ill-treatment of civilians with disabilities are war crimes and may constitute crimes against humanity. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Sudan has ratified, obligates states to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of danger, including armed conflict. Resolution 2475 of the United Nations Security Council states that parties to armed conflict must protect persons with disabilities and ensure their full inclusion in humanitarian responses Human Rights Watch said that the Security Council must act urgently to prevent further atrocities in Sudan against civilians, including those with disabilities, including imposing sanctions on the leadership of the Rapid Support Forces for ongoing atrocities, and publicly calling on the supporters of these forces, especially the UAE, to stop their support for them. Members of the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council should work together to ensure the deployment of a physical protection mission for civilians in Sudan to ensure that humanitarian agencies provide assistance Accessible and inclusive for persons with disabilities, including by providing assistive devices and targeted support. “Human Rights Watch has been documenting violations against persons with disabilities in armed conflicts around the world for more than a decade,” said Čerimovic. But this is the first time we have documented this type and scale of violations, including murder, directed against people with disabilities because of their disability. “Governments and the Security Council must act now to stop these crimes and ensure accountability.” Murder and Assault A 29-year-old nurse from El Fasher said that a RSF fighter called out to another fighter, saying, “Come and look at this lunatic,” referring to a young man with Down Syndrome. The fighters ordered his sister, who was carrying him on her back, to put him down and then executed him. After killing her brother, they tied her hands, covered her face, and took her with them. Human Rights Watch’s ongoing research has revealed that many of the women The girls were kidnapped in order to be raped or demanded a ransom in exchange for their release. The nurse also said that the Rapid Support fighters shot and killed a young woman who had a physical disability, as well as her mother, who was carrying her. She also described fighters ordering a woman carrying a blind boy on her back to take him down. The nurse said: “She said, ‘He cannot see.’” They shot him in the head immediately.” The 31-year-old man mentioned above described how a driver abandoned him and his mother in September 2025, 20 kilometers from the village of Hilla al-Sheikh, which they were trying to reach on their way to Tawila. His mother tried to push him into a wheelbarrow but exhausted herself. He urged her to go ahead and begged passing travelers to help him return to El Fasher. They refused at first. He said: “They told me that if the Rapid Support Forces saw me in that state [بعد بتر ساقي]”You’ll think I’m from the Sudanese Armed Forces and I’ll cause them trouble.” Eventually, a man driving a donkey cart allowed him to get in, and he returned to El Fasher, where he was reunited with his father. He and his father escaped on October 26 under intense bombardment when the RSF took control of El Fasher. He was separated from his father and was additionally wounded. He managed to return to his uncle’s house in El Fasher, but RSF fighters stormed the house a few hours later and accused him of belonging to an alliance of Darfuri armed groups. Allied with the military because of his disability and ethnicity, he said: “They started questioning me, ‘Are you a member of the joint forces? I told them I was sick in the hospital, and how I was injured while retrieving my goods from the market in August. They started arguing with me that I was a soldier. …They beat me for 20 minutes with a whip all over my body. I was bleeding. …One of the soldiers said they had to kill me, and asked why I stayed, and that I should have left earlier. They kept asking me if I was a member of the Sudanese Armed Forces or the Joint Forces, and I kept saying no.” In February 2026, he said he still had scars on his arms from the beatings, and showed photos to Human Rights Watch. Upon arriving at Tawila, he was reunited with his mother. When Human Rights Watch interviewed him in February 2026, he had no information about his father’s whereabouts. Abandonment described by a 39-year-old man His escape, and having to leave his 41-year-old brother, who has a physical disability and cannot walk, said to us: “I am finished. I will die here. Please leave with your children and leave me here.” We could not take him. There were no cars and no camels. The same witness narrated that he saw wounded people and people with disabilities asking for help while trying to flee from El Fasher on October 27: “There were wounded on the ground, and people. They lost their limbs, asking for help, and you couldn’t help them.” A 22-year-old man was left behind in an attack in February 2025 by the person he was carrying as they fled El Fasher with a group of civilians. “He dropped me off and told me he would come back. “I don’t know what happened to him, whether he was killed or arrested.” Unable to move without assistance, the RSF eventually arrested him, held him for 10 days, and released him only after paying 15 million Sudanese pounds (about $3,600). Looting of assistive devices A 40-year-old teacher with a hearing impairment was fleeing from El Fasher to Qarni in October 2025, when RSF fighters stopped civilians on the road and searched them. They confiscated their personal belongings. He said: “They started searching us all, and stole our beautiful watches and phones. They found my stethoscope and asked me what it was. I told them it was very important to me, but they didn’t believe me, and they took it away. “They threatened to shoot me, so I let them take it.” He said the fighters also stole his clothes and his phone. Life in displacement A 47-year-old woman fled a displacement camp with her 15-year-old daughter, who has physical and speech disabilities, and her 79-year-old mother, who also has a physical disability. “Before the war, we used to go to physical therapy,” she said. [لابنتي]. There is no longer anything like this, there is no technician or doctor to follow up on our condition.” She added that the bathrooms and other facilities in the camp are not equipped to receive people with physical disabilities: “There is no separate place.” [للأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة] For bathrooms or food. My mother and daughter cannot go to these bathrooms [غير المجهزة]. We need to take them.” Another mother of five, including a 6-year-old daughter with a physical disability, said her daughter needs an assistive device and certain foods she cannot get in the Tawila IDP camp: “She needs an assistive device, otherwise she keeps lying down.” She only eats soft foods, and I have a hard time finding the specific foods she needs. I am doing my best.” https://www.hrw.org/ar/news/2026/02/24/sudan-people-with-disabilities-targeted-in-north-darfur
