A chilling account of alleged atrocities committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in El Fasher and Geneina has been revealed by Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University. Raymond presented disturbing testimonies detailing the fall of El Fasher, the capital of the Darfur region.
According to Raymond, their on-the-ground network in El Fasher reported horrific casualties immediately following the city’s collapse. Initial reports indicated that 1,200 family members and friends were allegedly killed by the RSF. Tragically, within hours, this number reportedly escalated to 10,000. Raymond stated that communication was subsequently severed, leading to fears that all contacts are deceased.
Raymond’s statements were made during a panel discussion at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, focusing on the escalating crisis in Sudan, where the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are engaged in conflict with the RSF. He recounted how his unit, initially deployed to Ukraine for the US State Department, was reassigned to support the Jeddah negotiations between the SAF and RSF in the early weeks of the conflict.
Their role, according to Raymond, involved analyzing high-resolution satellite imagery to provide the United States and Saudi Arabia with information to assess the situation on the ground. He noted that the ceasefire agreement, known as the ‘Jeddah Declaration,’ collapsed almost immediately. Raymond further claimed that while the international community focused on the fighting in Khartoum and Omdurman, the RSF allegedly exploited the situation to launch a large-scale offensive against the Masalit people in Geneina.
Raymond also stated that his team was the first to confirm to the US government the death of the Governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abakar, alleging he was publicly executed by beheading. This, he claimed, sparked a wave of house-to-house killings targeting Masalit men and boys. He further added that his team obtained early, unreleased field images, which they used to assess the extent of the alleged mass killings.
