'Our Mission Is Solely Executing' - The Way The Sudanese Brutal Paramilitary Group Carried out a Mass Killing
Caution: This Report Presents Graphic Details of Killings.
Combatants laugh as they move on the back of a utility vehicle, racing past a row of nine corpses and moving facing the descending African sunset.
"See all this effort. See this act of genocide," one cheers.
The fighter beams as he directs the video equipment on his own face and his fellow militiamen, their Rapid Support Forces identification visible: "They are all going to perish this way."
The combatants are celebrating a mass killing that humanitarian officials suspect resulted in the deaths of in excess of 2,000 civilians in the Sudan's city of the Darfur city last month.
A Community Cut Off from the Outside
Following their control of the community under encirclement for nearly two years, from late summer the militia advanced to consolidate its control and restrict the remaining inhabitants.
Satellite images demonstrate that forces started to erect a massive earth barrier - a raised sand barrier - surrounding the perimeter of el-Fasher, sealing off roads and preventing aid.
During the encirclement intensified, multiple individuals were slain in an militia assault on a mosque on mid-September, while the United Nations said 53 additional were slain in unmanned aircraft and cannon bombardments on a refugee settlement in the autumn.
Explicit Recording Depicts Defenseless Individuals Shot
In the early morning on late October the militia defeated the last military strongholds and captured the main base in the city, the headquarters of the Military Unit, as the military retreated.
Perhaps the most graphic footage to emerge and examined showed the results of a massacre at a educational facility on the west of the city, where dozens corpses were observed scattered over the ground.
An elderly man clad in a robe remained isolated surrounded by the victims. He rotated to look as a militiaman equipped with a firearm proceeded down the stairs towards the individual. Raising his firearm, the gunman discharged a solitary round at the individual, who fell to the ground lifeless.
"For what reason is this one even living," a fighter shouted. "Kill him."
Space-based imagery recorded on late October indicated to verify that shootings were additionally carried out on the roads of el-Fasher, based on a study published by the university analysis team.
One observer who spoke reported they had observed "multiple of our relatives being executed - the victims were collected in a specific area and everyone murdered."
RSF Officers Try to Conduct Damage Control
In the days that came after the massacre, militia chief acknowledged that his forces had perpetrated "atrocities" and said the occurrences would be investigated.
Among those arrested was following a investigation detailing his executions. Carefully choreographed and produced video shared on the paramilitary's formal social media account depict him being escorted into a prison room at a detention facility on the perimeter of the city.
At the same time, the militia and associated social media accounts commenced trying to alter the narrative.
Content presenting its fighters providing aid to civilians were disseminated by various users, while the paramilitary's communications team published several clips purporting to display the compassionate treatment of military captives.
Despite the digital effort being employed by the RSF, their activities in el-Fasher have provoked worldwide anger.