BBC identifies at least 43 RSF attacks on El Fasher hospitals — BBC News
A BBC News investigation found evidence of the systematic destruction of the healthcare system in El Fasher, a city in Sudan’s Darfur region, by fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Journalists documented at least 43 separate attacks on hospitals and medical facilities from May 2024 to October 2025. Some facilities were hit repeatedly.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called the investigation’s findings “deeply disturbing.” According to him, repeated RSF attacks on civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities, are serious violations of international humanitarian law and may constitute war crimes.
The RSF rejected the BBC’s findings. Alaaeldin Nugud, the health minister of the RSF-linked civilian administration, called the accusations propaganda and an attempt by the Sudanese army and its allies to damage the group’s reputation.
Medical worker casualties and hospital closures
According to the BBC, from April 2023 to October 2025, 120 healthcare workers were injured in El Fasher, 55 were killed, and another 10 people were forcibly disappeared or abducted. During the war in Sudan, both sides of the conflict have been accused of attacks on medical infrastructure.
In May and early June 2024, El Fasher’s South Hospital repeatedly came under fire. On June 8, according to testimony from the facility’s staff, RSF fighters entered the building and personnel were forced to flee. The hospital’s director, surgeon Izzeldin Ahmed Dawoud Aso, said that after the RSF withdrew, he found the bodies of several patients and destroyed operating-room equipment.
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Nugud stated that South Hospital had been used as a military base. He claimed that rocket launchers had been deployed on its grounds and showed video of weapon remnants filmed more than a year after the facility closed. The BBC found no independent evidence for these claims, while Darfur regional authorities categorically denied them.
Strikes on the Saudi Hospital
After South Hospital closed, its staff and equipment were moved to the Saudi Maternity Hospital in the west of the city. Six doctors told the BBC that the facility was regularly shelled with artillery and attacked by drones — at times up to 25 times a day. Smaller medical facilities, including a children’s hospital and a dialysis center, were also hit, including after the relocation.
Until the RSF captured El Fasher in October 2025, the Saudi Hospital remained the city’s only functioning medical facility. Medical workers set up shelters from steel containers and temporary operating rooms. Aso said that one such operating room was attacked five times in 2025.
On October 25, 2025, the RSF entered the Saudi Hospital amid accusations that they killed more than 460 patients and people accompanying them. The RSF denied that a mass killing took place. The World Health Organization condemned reports of the killings, while satellite images, according to the BBC, appeared to show clusters of bodies on the hospital grounds.
