CAIRO, Feb 15, (AP): More than 6,000 people were killed in over three days when a Sudanese paramilitary group unleashed "a wave of intense violence … shocking in its scale and brutality” in Sudan's Darfur region in late October, according to the United Nations. The Rapid Support Forces' offensive to capture the city of el-Fasher included widespread atrocities that amount to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, the UN Human Rights Office said in a report released on Friday.

"The wanton violations that were perpetrated by the RSF and allied Arab militia in the final offensive on el-Fasher underscore that persistent impunity fuels continued cycles of violence,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. The RSF and their allied Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, overran el-Fasher, the Sudanese army’s only remaining stronghold in Darfur, on Oct 26 and rampaged through the city and its surroundings after more than 18 months of siege.

The 29-page UN report detailed a set of atrocities that ranged from mass killings and summary executions, sexual violence, abductions for ransom, torture and ill-treatment to detention and disappearances. In many cases, the attacks were ethnicity-motivated, it said. The RSF did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment. The paramilitaries' Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo has previously acknowledged abuses by his fighters, but disputed the scale of atrocities.

The alleged atrocities in el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur, mirror a pattern of RSF conduct in its war against the Sudanese miliary. The war began in April 2023 when a power struggle between the two sides exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere across the country. The conflict created the world's largest humanitarian crisis with parts of the country pushed into famine.

It has also been marked by heinous atrocities which the International Criminal Court said it was investigating as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The RSF was also accused by the Biden administration of carrying out genocide in the ongoing war. The UN Human Rights Office said it documented the killing of at least 4,400 people inside el-Fasher between Oct 25 and Oct 27, while more than 1,600 others were killed as they were trying to flee the RSF rampage.

The report said it drew its toll from interviews with 140 victims and witnesses which were "are consistent with independent analysis of contemporaneous satellite imagery and video footage." In one case, RSF fighters opened fire from heavy weapons on a crowd of 1,000 people sheltering in the Rashid dormitory in el-Fasher university on Oct 26, killing around 500 people, the report said.