‘Our job is only killing’ – how Sudan’s brutal militia carried out a massacre in el-Fasher

Prior to the paramilitary’s seizure of el-Fasher, very little information had emerged from the city for months. But within hours of the military’s collapse, footage of atrocities committed by the RSF started to appear online, shattering the silence that had fallen on the city.

One of the most graphic videos to emerge and analysed by BBC Verify showed the aftermath of a massacre at a university building on the western side of the city, where dozens of dead bodies were seen scattered across the floor.

An elderly man wearing a white tunic sat alone amongst the bodies. He turned to look as a fighter armed with a rifle walked down the stairs towards him. Raising his weapon, the gunman fired a single shot at the man, who collapsed to the floor motionless. Fellow soldiers, unfazed by the act, immediately spotted another man’s leg twitch in the tangle of bodies.

“Why is this one still alive,” one fighter cried. “Shoot him.”

Satellite images taken on 26 October appeared to confirm that executions were also carried out on the streets of el-Fasher, according to a report published by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab.

Its analysts highlighted large “clusters” visible in the images, which they said were “consistent with the size range of adult human bodies and are not present in previous imagery”. It also pointed to “discoloration” which the report said may have been marks caused by human blood.

One eyewitness who spoke to the BBC said he had witnessed “many of our relatives being massacred – they were gathered in one place and all killed”.

Another witness recalled seeing a woman being killed after the RSF “shot her in the chest” before throwing her body aside “after taking all her belongings”.