3 Nov 2025

Sudan PM demands international trial over RSF 'crimes'

9:40 am on 3 November 2025
Local residents take part in a demonstration in Omdurman on October 31, 2025, to protest against the Rapid Support Forces’ reported “atrocities” in El-Fasher in western Sudan. Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said they had arrested several of their fighters accused of committing abuses during the capture of the city of El-Fasher, including a man identified by AFP in multiple execution videos. The RSF, at war with the army since April 2023, seized El-Fasher -- the army's last stronghold in western Darfur -- on October 26, after an 18-month siege. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)

Local residents take part in a demonstration in Omdurman on 31 October 2025. Photo: AFP / Ebrahim Hamid

Sudan's prime minister has called for atrocities committed in the city of El-Fasher, seized by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, to be tried in the international courts.

But Kamil Idris, in an interview with Switzerland's Blick newspaper published on Sunday (local time), rejected the "illegal" idea of foreign troops being deployed to his country, ravaged by civil war since April 2023.

"The international community has done too little," said Idris.

"We need acts, not just words. Every crime needs to be prosecuted in the courts -- including at the international level."

After 18 months of siege, bombardment and starvation, the RSF took control of El-Fasher on 26 October, dislodging the army's last stronghold in Sudan's western Darfur region.

In the days since the city's capture survivors have reported executions, pillaging, rape and other atrocities, sparking an international outcry.

Idris urged all United Nations member states to brand the RSF "as a terrorist organisation and to fight them as a result".

But the Sudanese premier told Blick he believed that "that UN peacekeeping missions... would not be desirable" in Sudan.

"International troops would undermine Sudan's sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is illegal, would only increase confusion and would be counterproductive," Idris added.

"The Sudanese army and people are determined to save and liberate El-Fasher."

El-Fasher's fall to the RSF gave it full control over all five state capitals in Darfur, effectively splitting Sudan along an east-west axis.

The paramilitaries have established a self-declared rival government in Darfur, while the army holds Sudan's north, east and centre.

The civil war has raised fears of another partition of the country, which has already seen South Sudan declare independence in 2011.

The RSF - descended from the Janjaweed Arab militias accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago - has also been accused of ethnic massacres since the war's outbreak.

-AFP

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