Sudan: Between Tragic Statistics and the Conflict of Agents

(Translated)

Al-Rayah Newspaper - Issue 605 - 24/06/2026

By: Ustadh Abdel-Khaliq Abdoun*

On June 16, 2026, the National Committee for Investigating Crimes and Violations of National and International Humanitarian Law in Sudan announced that there have been 15,000 cases of detention and enforced disappearance since the outbreak of the war. Sudanese Public Prosecutor Intisar Abdel-Aal, who chairs the committee, stated during a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the number of registered criminal cases reached 149,860. These include 385 cases involving violations and abuses committed by members of regular forces—the army, police, and intelligence services—whose immunity has been lifted in preparation for trial. Intisar Abdel-Aal explained that courts have adjudicated 10,417 cases related to crimes, violations, and collaboration with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), noting that investigations have been completed in another 21,787 cases, which have been referred to national courts for adjudication. Intisar emphasized that her participation in the UN meeting was intended to brief the Human Rights Council on national efforts to achieve justice, provide redress for victims, and prevent impunity.

The United Nations and its affiliated organizations have described the situation in Sudan as the world's largest humanitarian disaster and the greatest crisis of hunger and displacement. The Principal Deputy Spokesperson for the US State Department, Vedant Patel, stated that more than 150,000 people have been killed and over 14 million displaced, and the tragedy continues. Meanwhile, the Sudanese Minister of Social Affairs reported that the ministry had recorded 1,800 cases of rape between the outbreak of the war and October 2025—figures that do not include incidents in El Fasher and Kordofan. Such acts are often committed in the presence of family members, alongside the enslavement and trafficking of women and children, who are sold in neighboring countries. Citing the International Labour Organization, Sudan Tribune reported that 37% of health facilities have gone out of service due to shelling and attacks. A World Health Organization report indicated that 1,858 medical personnel were killed and 490 injured. The unemployment rate has surged to 80%—up from 32% before the war—with five million people losing their primary source of income.

In a UN report, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) confirmed providing care for 659 cases of sexual violence in South Darfur between January 2024 and March 2025. The organization reported that 68% of these cases involved rape; 94% of the victims were women and girls, with 31% under the age of 18 and 7% under the age of ten.

The Sudanese government has accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of running an organized human organ trafficking network within the Digris and Shala prisons in the Darfur region—where, according to government estimates, approximately 20,000 military and civilian detainees are held—an allegation denied by RSF sources.

On June 15, 2026, Al Jazeera Net reported that the RSF was continuing—for the second consecutive day—operations involving the burning of villages and looting of property in the Orshi Dam area of ​​Umbaru Locality, North Darfur, amidst the mass displacement of thousands of families to neighboring areas. Abu Bakr Ahmed Imam, the official spokesperson for the Popular Resistance in North Darfur, told Al Jazeera Net that the RSF had launched a massive attack on the area the previous morning, utilizing military vehicles alongside fighters mounted on horses and camels. The attack resulted in the complete burning of eight villages and the looting and burning of the Orshi market, alongside the theft of large numbers of livestock and household belongings.

This attack follows days of unprecedented drone strikes targeting the border areas of Tina and Karnoi and their surroundings, while displaced people from Orshi seek safety under trees and sleep in the open.

According to Abu Bakr Imam, who spoke to Al Jazeera, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) remain in the area and continue to burn homes on a large scale; the region is entirely devoid of any military presence to protect its residents. Imam noted that at least five civilians were killed—an initial toll—while others were abducted, and thousands of families have been displaced to valleys and nearby areas, living in the open under trees.

In a related development, the Governor of the Darfur region, Minni Arko Minnawi, stated in a Facebook post that this new crime is part of a “systematic strategy to alter the demographic map of Darfur.”

On May 24, RSF drones had targeted the crowded Tina market, killing 14 civilians—mostly women and children—and injuring dozens. The following day, a similar massacre occurred in Karnoi, leaving seven dead and over 20 injured. Attacks also extended to Umbaru and its vicinity as part of an escalating offensive. On May 26, RSF forces targeted the Baso water reservoir west of Tina, killing three civilians and destroying a lifeline for more than 100,000 displaced persons and local residents. According to observers, the repeated targeting of civilian infrastructure confirms a systematic pattern aimed at destroying the means of survival and forcing civilians to flee—a pattern that has previously played out in the areas of Tina, Karnoi, and Umbaro.

Major Mutawakkil Ali Wakil Abuja, spokesperson for the Joint Force of Armed Struggle Movements, told Al Jazeera Net that the targeting of water sources was not limited to the Baso reservoir but also extended to the Urshi reservoir and other locations in Umbaro and Tina.

Abu Bakr Ahmed Imam, spokesperson for the Popular Resistance in North Darfur, had previously stated that these events are not random. He explained that “the destruction of water sources and the shelling of masajid were not coincidental. Instead, they are part of a calculated plan to cut off life-sustaining resources, force the population to flee, and engineer demographic change.”

In recent weeks, the areas of Tina, Karnoi, Umbaro, and Urshi have witnessed successive waves of displacement. As the Rapid Support Forces continue their advance, residents are enduring dire conditions amidst a lack of protection and persistent security threats. Newly displaced people are joining thousands of families living in the open under trees, without shelter, food, or medicine. Furthermore, the attacked region lacks a field hospital capable of treating the wounded, and the burnt-out villages are devoid of water; displaced families are searching for any safe haven beneath the valley trees, mirroring the situations previously seen in Tina, Karnoi, and Umbaro.

This escalation follows the Rapid Support Forces' targeting of the Baso water reservoir—an act legal experts have described as a “full-fledged war crime” under Article 54 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits the destruction of water facilities vital to the civilian population.

What is happening in Sudan—that land of good people, the land of the Noble Quran, the land of Ali Dinar, the provider of the Kaaba's covering—would not have occurred were it not for the subservience and collaboration of the rulers, who follow their masters so blindly that they would even follow them into a lizard’s hole!

This war was ignited on instructions from America, carried out by its agents Al-Burhan and Dagalo, to sever Europe’s—and particularly Britain’s—grip on Sudan. They proceeded with no regard for the violations and tragedies wrought by this senseless conflict. The people of Sudan will never rise again as long as they are ruled by the agents of colonialism—men who respect neither ties of kinship nor covenants, and whose sole concern and ambition is to appease their masters at the expense of the country and its people.

There is no refuge or salvation except through the implementation of Islamic rulings under the state obligated upon us by Allah (swt) and His Prophet (saw): the Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly-Guided Caliphate) on the method of the Prophethood—a state that safeguards the Islamic Ummah and repels disbelief and the disbelievers.

* Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Sudan