Sudan Fact-Finding Mission shows systematic ethnic persecution, including sexual violence: Two-year renewal needed

Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the Fact-Finding Mission, presenting the Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan at the HRC60.

On 5 September 2025, ahead of the Human Rights Council's 60^th Session in Geneva, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan (FFM) published its second report, "Sudan: A War of Atrocities".

What's new in the FFM's second report?

This report reiterates that both the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are committing extensive war crimes, with some amounting to crimes against humanity. However, there is a greater emphasis on deliberate targeting of civilians as a core strategy, heightening the severity of international crimes being committed.

The scale and severity of conflict-related sexual violence are raised, including sexual slavery and enslavement, implying the need for more systemic survivor support, accountability, and inclusion of gender perspectives in justice. In addition, sexual violence is linked to ethnic or politically motivated persecution. A finding that RfP also made in its submission to the FFM in June 2025.

"Sexual violence often has an ethnic dimension" (para. 64), with a finding of “persecution on intersecting ethnic and gender grounds" (para. 70)

The report provides more granular detail of more specific instances of systematic violence against civilians, such as the Al Fasher siege in North Darfur. The report stresses a greater scale of killings, mass displacement, arbitrary detention, sexual violence and consistent damage or destruction of civilian infrastructure, including medical centres, schools and food and water systems. It also provides more specific attribution of responsibility, making repeated and specific findings of war crimes that go beyond the "reasonable grounds to believe" standard used in the 2024 report, naming the RSF but also the Sudan Armed Forces. For instance:

"It finds that the Rapid Support Forces, through the siege of El Fasher and its surroundings, committed the war crime of intentionally using starvation as a method of warfare..." (para. 121).

Rights for Peace submission

Rights for Peace (RfP) submitted confidential evidence to the FFM in June 2025 as well as recommendations, which were incorporated in the report. These included documentation of specific incidents of ethnically motivated violence from June to November 2024.

In line with RfP’s findings, the FFM underlines an ethnic dimension to the attacks of both the RSF and SAF. This ethnic dimension extends to perceived affiliations with the opposing side. It highlights specific groups being persecuted on ethnic grounds with the RSF’s deliberate policy of targeting non-Arab communities (Zaghawa, Fur, Masalit, Tunjur) and the SAF targeting of the Arab Rizeigat community in Sennar and the Kanabi community in Gezira.

In terms of accountability, Sudan remains unable to conduct impartial investigations and prosecutions for international crimes. With a history of selective justice and a lack of trust from victims and survivors, domestic laws have frequently been used to escape accountability. The RSF has established courts in areas under its control in Darfur, but there is no publicity on their functioning and legal basis.

The FFM, in line with RfP’s suggestion, recommended that the Security Council's arms embargo mechanism should aim to halt all material support to the parties, including through private actors. Both RfP and the FFM underlined the importance of increasing the scope of targeted sanctions against individuals and entities suspected of international crimes.  

Victims Rights? The FFM should include documentation for the purposes of reparation

In line with RfP’s recommendations, an explicit mention of victims' right to reparations was made. During a 3-day FFM consultation in Nairobi aimed at recommendations on accountability measures, Rights for Peace highlighted the need for Fact-Finding Missions also to gather evidence for the purposes of reparation. 

RfP recommended simple and achievable structures to gather evidence and establish victimhood for interim reparation measures to be implemented through an existing voluntary Trust Fund, such as the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Torture. The analogy of the ICC’s findings in its judgements with reparation orders implemented by the ICC’s Trust Fund for Victims.

Despite the ongoing conflict, victim-focused responses, such as interim reparation measures, are urgent. Reparation is always an afterthought in the conception of human rights mechanisms, with its implementation falling short.

Mariana Goetz, RfP Director, stated at the Nairobi consultation:

“There is no reason why reparations should always be an afterthought, and the focus of justice efforts be confined to accountability, when reparation is integral to victims’ rights to a remedy.”  

Importance of a two-year FFM Renewal

The 2-year renewal of the FFM is fundamental to future accountability of international crimes committed by both parties. In the absence of peace, the renewal of the FFM mandate is essential to the continued investigation and documentation of violations and war crimes. As the only impartial body investigating the violations of the war, it ensures the viability of a future transitional justice process. It stresses that impunity will not be tolerated and consolidates evidence which will hold individual perpetrators accountable. Given the scale and complexity of violence against civilians in Sudan, a renewal of the FFM is critical.  

Human Rights Council in Session, Room XX, (c) United Nations

The FFM was initially mandated for one year in October 2023, following the eruption of violent conflict in Sudan on 15 April 2023 and was extended in October 2024. With the conflict now entering its third year and with the continued escalation of violence against civilians, it is paramount that the UN Human Rights Council extend its mandate for 2 years. This will save the FFM precious time and costs associated with the renewal process, so it can focus on its mandate to investigate alleged human rights violations and abuses by all parties. Continued documentation of grave violations is essential to ending the cycles of impunity that have, for far too long, protected perpetrators of mass atrocities in Sudan.