Report Offers New Evidence of Starvation Crimes in Darfur

The world’s largest humanitarian crisis is continuing to spiral in Sudan, where the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its former ally, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), is poised to enter its fourth year. The impact on civilians has been severe. In a briefing to the United Nations Security Council on January 19, Nazhat Shameem Khan, the deputy prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), described a campaign of “widespread mass criminality” and characterized the situation as one of “collective torture.” The U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan released a report on Feb. 17 documenting RSF war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Now, new evidence is available about a specific set of international crimes carried out by the RSF. This morning, March 10, the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (Yale HRL) published a report that relies on remote sensing technology to establish a devastating pattern of RSF conduct in the vicinity of El-Fasher, Sudan between March 31 and June 12, 2024. The report draws on multiple data sources to expose the RSF’s systematic razing of agricultural communities, destruction of livestock corrals, and displacement or killing of inhabitants in the agrarian villages that are a critical local source of food for El-Fasher. During the 10 weeks under analysis, the RSF attacked, sometimes repeatedly, 41 rural farming communities on some of the most fertile land in Darfur. Together with the RSF’s denial of humanitarian access to El-Fasher (including through constructing an earthen wall to block entry and exit completed in October 2025) and targeting of markets and community kitchens within the city, attacks on agricultural communities and systems in the surrounding area formed a critical component of the group’s starvation strategy during the 18-month siege that culminated in the fall of El-Fasher on Oct. 26, 2025.

In what follows, we assess the legal significance of this new evidence. Before doing so, it is important to clarify two points. First, our analysis here does not purport to provide a comprehensive legal analysis of international crimes in Sudan, or even in the specific region around El-Fasher. Rather, it focuses on the evidence presented in the March 2026 Yale HRL report and the criminal categories it specifically implicates. Second, by way of disclosure, we have both consulted pro bono with the Yale HRL team throughout this investigation. Here, we offer our independent legal analysis of the evidence that they have brought to light.

We conclude that the new Yale HRL report provides compelling evidence relevant to multiple RSF starvation crimes in the vicinity of El-Fasher, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The region is central to an ongoing ICC investigation. Additionally, the report has broader significance beyond the situation in Sudan, as it models careful investigative analysis of satellite imagery and open-source data in documenting atrocity crimes as they unfold, when on-the-ground investigations are difficult or impossible.

Background: The Conflict in Sudan

The current conflict has been raging since April 2023 when the RSF (the successor force to the Janjaweed), led by General Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, split from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), under the command of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. For the past 34 months, the two factions have wreaked calamity on the civilian population. Well over 11 million people have been displaced by the conflict, which has caused desperate levels of food insecurity, including multiple determinations of famine, initially in Zamzam Camp south of El-Fasher, subsequently in Al Salam and Abu Shouk camps (in El-Fasher) and in the Western Nuba Mountains, and most recently in El-Fasher town and Kadugli. According to the November 2025 analysis of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which tracks hunger across the globe, 21.2 million people in Sudan are suffering acute food insecurity at crisis or worse levels, including 6.7 million at emergency or worse, and 375,000 in catastrophe. Last month, following mass displacement from El-Fasher, acute malnutrition levels surpassed the famine threshold in Um Baru and Kernoi.

The war, which has been characterized by repeated and credible reports of widespread atrocities by both sides, has created the conditions for this devastating reality. First, the fighting and the parties’ well-documented obstruction of humanitarian relief have, for extended periods, made the transportation of food and aid to places that desperately need it nearly impossible. Second, there have been credible reports of widespread attacks on and destruction of objects indispensable to civilian survival. The latter is the focus of this analysis.

New Information in the March 2026 Yale HRL Report

Providing granular detail on the targeted burning, destruction, and razing of 41 agrarian villages northwest of El-Fasher in Darfur, the Yale HRL report contributes to our understanding of the desperate situation in Sudan. Among the critical new findings documented in the report are the following:

• Forty-one communities north-northwest of El-Fasher were razed between March 31 and June 12, 2024.
• Most of the analyzed communities experienced damage to civilian dwellings and livestock corrals, followed by no or reduced observable agricultural activity and other patterns of life for months after the razing, which indicates that civilians living in these communities were killed, forcibly displaced, or fled.
• The communities targeted are primarily ethnically Zaghawa and participate in agricultural activities that support the food ecosystem of El-Fasher. After the attacks, many of the communities halted their traditional agricultural preparations and harvest of food that would typically feed the population in the wider El-Fasher area.
• The pattern of thermal scarring is consistent with intentional attacks and inconsistent with accidental fires.
• In a number of cases, the sites were attacked multiple times including at least one community attacked on seven distinct occasions. Figure 4 in the Yale HRL report maps the communities that were attacked between March 31 and June 12, 2024 and the number of times they were attacked:

In separate investigative work, Yale HRL confirmed attacks on 26 additional communities in and around El-Fasher. It is likely that the true number of communities attacked is much higher. Together with the siege and denial of humanitarian access, this pattern of attacks has contributed to the deterioration of food security in the region. The IPC determinations of famine at multiple local sites, including El-Fasher itself, and extreme rates of malnutrition among those who fled to Tawila following the city’s fall emphasize the catastrophic consequences for civilians of this multimodal practice of deprivation.

Having reviewed it carefully, our view is that the information provided in the March 10 report includes evidence relevant to multiple crimes codified in the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Specifically, it includes:

• Strong evidence of the systematic deprivation of objects indispensable to civilian survival, which, combined with other publicly available information, is highly probative of the war crime of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare (article 8(2)(e)(xix)).
• Strong evidence of the war crime of destroying adversary property not imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict (article 8(2)(e)(xii))
• Strong evidence of the infliction of destructive conditions of life on the population of El-Fasher and its surroundings through the deprivation of food, which, if combined with evidence that this contributed to the mass killing of civilians, would strongly support a finding of extermination as a crime against humanity (article 7(1)(b) and 7(2)(b)). Alternatively, evidence of a causal link between the acts of deprivation and the deaths of a smaller number of civilians would support a finding of murder as a crime against humanity (article 7(1)(a)).
• Strong evidence of the infliction of conditions of great suffering and serious injury to mental or physical health among civilians in El-Fasher and its surroundings, in clear support of a finding of other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity (article 7(1)(k))
• Strong evidence that civilians in the attacked villages and communities were either killed, implicating murder and potentially extermination, or were forcibly transferred from those locations, supporting a finding of forcible transfer as a crime against humanity (article 7(1)(d)) or forcible displacement of the civilian population as a war crime (article 8(2)(e)(viii)).
• If any of the crimes detailed above were inflicted with discriminatory animus, the evidence could also support a finding of persecution (article 7(1)(h)). However, additional evidence would be necessary to decisively establish that intent. This could include evidence relating to discriminatory animus evaluated in the recent Fact-Finding Mission report.
• The evidence in the report is consistent with the crime of genocide, particularly via the infliction of destructive conditions of life (article 6(c)), but given the tools employed in the investigation, it does not contain the evidence necessary to establish specific genocidal intent. The evidence in the report could, however, provide support for such a charge in connection with additional evidence, such as that evaluated in the aforementioned Fact-Finding Mission report, which assessed that genocidal intent was “the only reasonable inference that can be drawn” from the RSF’s pattern of conduct during the siege and subsequent fall of El-Fasher.

In what follows, after noting some preliminary jurisdictional complexities, we summarize the key evidence for each of these crimes, as provided in the report. This, of course, is only one component of the broad evidence base upon which prosecutors will need to draw in pursuing accountability in relation to Sudan. Nonetheless, the Yale HRL report is striking in its detail and in the legal clarity of its implications. It provides critical evidence to support criminal charges.

Jurisdiction

Sudan is not party to the ICC and has not otherwise accepted its jurisdiction. Ordinarily, this would preclude ICC action here. The Court generally has jurisdiction over atrocity crimes perpetrated either on the territory of, or by the nationals of, a State that has accepted ICC jurisdiction. However, there is one way around these jurisdictional constraints: referral by the U.N. Security Council. More than 20 years ago, in its first engagement with the then-fledgling ICC, the Security Council approved Resolution 1593, referring the situation in Darfur to the Court. The referral’s jurisdictional durability two decades on has yet to be fully tested, but ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, who is currently on leave, and the deputies leading the Office of the Prosecutor in his absence have been unequivocal in grounding investigative authority today in Resolution 1593. One month ago, the Office of the Prosecutor asserted, “alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the hostilities in El-Fasher and its surrounding areas as well as in West Darfur fall within the jurisdiction of the Court.” We anticipate that the Court will affirm this position, although it would be useful to clarify when jurisdiction predicated on Security Council referrals terminates. Parenthetically, it should also be noted that the resolution applies to Darfur, rather than the entirety of Sudan, although that is no barrier to ICC jurisdiction over the criminal activity spotlighted in the Yale HRL report, all of which occurs within Darfur.

A second jurisdictional note relates to conflict classification. War crimes can only be committed during an armed conflict—whether an international armed conflict (IAC) (between States) or a non-international armed conflict (NIAC) (a conflict between a State and organized armed group or between organized armed groups). The intense and organized fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) over the past 35 months would easily satisfy the criteria for a NIAC (for more detail on these criteria see paras 702-725 Prosecutor v. Ntaganda), but the question is whether that is the correct classification. Specifically, if it could be established that the RSF is acting under the overall control of an external State, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), their fight could be characterized instead as an IAC. The UAE’s significant contributions to the RSF notwithstanding, we have not seen evidence of that level of control, so we presume a NIAC here. However, the distinction is relevant because the specific war crime of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is most likely available at the ICC only if the conflict is an IAC, due to the rules around the jurisdictional availability of amendment crimes (a point on which one of us has written in greater detail in a prior article for Just Security). To be clear, even assuming the starvation war crime is not available, other ICC crimes would be, including crimes against humanity, genocide, and the Statute’s original NIAC war crimes.

Additionally, even if it is not available jurisdictionally at the ICC, the NIAC starvation war crime could be prosecuted in other fora as a war crime implicating universal jurisdiction. Similarly, if, contrary to our expectation, the Security Council’s 2005 referral of the situation in Darfur were found not to underpin current ICC jurisdiction at all, accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide could be pursued elsewhere, including in domestic courts exercising universal jurisdiction, or potentially in a hybrid or international court created for this specific situation (for a recent example, see the hybrid tribunal agreed by The Gambia and the Economic Community of West African States).

In any event, it appears that the ICC will be faced with these questions in short order, if they are not already before its Pre-Trial judges. The conflict in Sudan escalated quickly up the Office of the Prosecutor’s list of investigative priorities. Karim Khan indicated repeatedly that he was poised to request arrest warrants. Subsequently, the ICC was reported to have required that the Prosecutor keep arrest warrant applications in certain situations under seal—a requirement that it later formalized in an amendment to the Regulations of the Court in November 2025. It is almost certain that warrant applications have either been submitted or are imminent. The primary questions relate instead to the charges that have been included.

Although the range of potential charges in this situation is broad, the fact of mass deprivation of food, water, and medicine, however characterized legally, must play a central role in any arrest warrant applications. The Yale HRL report offers crucial evidentiary support to investigators at the ICC and elsewhere in that respect.

War Crimes

Starvation of Civilians as a Method of Warfare

In addition to the elements relating to the armed conflict, the two key substantive elements of the starvation war crime are: (1) the perpetrator deprived civilians of objects indispensable to their survival, and (2) the perpetrator intended to starve civilians as a method of warfare. As one of us has detailed previously, the best interpretation of the intent threshold here is that it includes two alternative forms—direct and oblique. Either the perpetrators engaged in the deprivation of objects indispensable to survival for the purpose of denying the objects’ sustenance value to civilians or to a civilian population (whether or not they were certain that civilians would starve as a result), or the perpetrators engaged in deliberate deprivation in conditions in which they were virtually certain that civilians would starve (regardless of whether the deprivation was done for reasons other than sustenance denial). In evaluating the first form of intent, it is important to emphasize that a predominantly civilian population does not lose its civilian character in virtue of the presence of combatants within it (see, e.g., Additional Protocol I, article 50(3); ICTY Prosecutor v. Karadžić Trial Judgment 2016, paras. 474, 4610 n.5510). The population of El-Fasher and the surrounding communities was overwhelmingly civilian during this time.

The report is replete with evidence of the deliberate destruction or burning of agricultural areas, agricultural equipment, and infrastructure, all of which are paradigmatic examples of objects indispensable to survival. Importantly, criminal deprivation of objects indispensable to survival is not limited to acts of destruction; article 8(2)(e)(xix) refers to “willfully impeding relief supplies,” emphasizing that denying access to objects indispensable to survival can also meet the legal threshold. For similar reasons, separating farmers from their land through displacement, or otherwise impeding their ability to farm effectively, can qualify as a form of deprivation of objects indispensable to survival.

The report provides evidence for these and other modes of deprivation from multiple sources. Specifically:

• Yale HRL analysts combined satellite imagery, remote sensing data, and open-source data analysis with social media, local news reporting, multimedia, and other reports, to identify 41 razed farming villages during the period of interest.
• The team compiled data from NASA’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) from 2019 to 2024 to establish a baseline for fires and thermal anomalies. From this baseline, they identified a massive increase in thermal detections in the greater El-Fasher area of interest in 2024 (at the time of attacks on the identified communities). They also determined that agricultural land within 2 kilometers of the attacked villages had comprised 1.7 percent of thermal detections between 2019 and 2023, but comprised 35 percent of the thermal detections in 2024, a relative jump that is inconsistent with wildfires or other random burning and strongly indicative of deliberate targeting. This can be seen in figure 6, which demonstrates that there were far more thermal detections—likely active fires—in 2024 than in the five preceding years:

• The Yale HRL analysts generated a dataset through the analysis of thermal anomaly data, charting changes in low, moderate, and very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery, and open-source information to triangulate and strengthen the determination that the observed thermal anomalies reflect deliberate targeted burning to raze the observed villages and agricultural areas.
• The team quantified year-on-year changes in land use/land cover (LULC) classification of crop using Google’s and the World Resources Institute’s dataset “Dynamic World,” which includes near real-time LULC data at 10-meter resolution. They found significant decreases in areas of crop production during the growing period after communities were razed. This can be seen in figure 12 of the report, which shows contractions in crop area in 2024 when compared to the crop baseline assessed using the mode of 2019-2023:

• Evidence of the reduction in agricultural activity near razed communities can also be seen in figure 13 of the report, which shows that the average estimated crop area within two kilometers of communities that were burned was 1.25 square kilometers in 2024, a substantial decrease from an average of 7.16 square kilometers at baseline (2019-2023):

• The Yale HRL analysts measured changes from 2019 to 2024 in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) using Sentinel-2 imagery of the assessed communities, controlling for cumulative rainfall during the same period based on estimates from the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS), to demonstrate reduced pattern of life consistent with civilian displacement or death. In particular, the report documents the following:
  • After the attacks, there was significant vegetation overgrowth within 40 of the 41 villages in areas where vegetation would not ordinarily be expected (due to the grazing of livestock, the preparation of fields for crops, other agricultural practices, and ordinary patterns of life), indicating reduced or no human presence or farming.
  • The Yale HRL team examined patterns of life using multitemporal low, moderate, and very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery to show: reduced or no reconstruction of homes, livestock corrals, and other damaged or destroyed structures; reduced or no use of fields for agricultural preparation, some of which were barren; extensive damage to livestock corrals in at least 20 communities; and partial and sometimes widespread removal of metal roofs in many villages.
  • Figure 7 depicts the community pattern of life post-razing, showing observable reductions or absences of visible agricultural activity in 33 of the 41 attacked communities, including particularly those located along the Wadi, near fertile land. This included no visible patterns of life in 28 of the 41 communities and reduced patterns of life in five of the 41 communities:

• • Figure 8 of the report provides an example of this sequence of thermal scarring followed by overgrown vegetation within dwellings (and no observable patterns of life):

• • Figure 9 in the report shows the change in NDVI between 2019-2023 and 2024, demonstrating an increase in healthy vegetation, indicative of limited to no presence of civilians or livestock:

• • Figure 11 of the report exemplifies the absence of signs of agricultural activity (specifically pit planting) as compared to the prior year:

• • The report also shows that the level of overgrowth in the aftermath of attacks on the villages is inconsistent with the historical relationship between NDVI and cumulative rainfall, which indicates that the vegetation overgrowth is not likely to be solely attributable to increased rainfall in 2024.

To qualify as starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, the aforementioned modes of deprivation would need to be committed with criminal intent—i.e. either for the purpose of sustenance denial, or in the knowledge that civilian starvation would result.

Several factors indicate that this deprivation was done for the purpose of denying the population the sustenance value of these agricultural areas. For example, the targeting of livestock corrals or agricultural areas around dwellings is very difficult to explain without reference to their food-production value. As emphasized in the report, the selection of targets for burning is evinced by spacing between burned structures and repeated burning in specific locations relevant to agricultural production. This is exemplified in figure 3 in the report:

Moreover, the Yale HRL team observed no indicators of any reciprocal conduct of hostilities in the attacked and razed areas, which significantly diminishes the plausibility that they were attacked due to their effective contribution to military combat operations.

These agrarian villages were also in an area that was, by March 2024, deteriorating precipitously, with 50 percent of the population of El-Fasher suffering emergency or worse levels of food insecurity, according to contemporaneous analysis, and famine looming. In a report published in July 2024, the IPC warned of a risk of famine in El-Fasher “if immediate action is not taken to address the needs of the people and prevent further escalation of conflict.” In other words, even if, contrary to the indications noted above, deprivation of objects indispensable to survival was inflicted for reasons other than to deny sustenance to the civilian population, that deprivation occurred in a context in which it was virtually certain to contribute to civilian starvation. As such, it would still implicate the war crime of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. The location-specific tables of the contemporaneous IPC report are telling:

Source: Sudan IPC Acute Food Insecurity Analysis (July 22, 2024)

Destroying / Seizing the Property of the Adversary Without a Basis in Military Necessity

A more basic war crime implicated in the RSF’s destruction of villages, agricultural areas, and related objects is that of unnecessary destruction or seizure. The aforementioned burning and dismantling of structures (as evinced by the removal of metal roofs, destruction of corrals, and thermal scarring), as well as the razing or burning of agricultural land would meet the threshold of “destruction.”

The ICC’s Elements of Crimes specifies that the required elements of this crime in non-international armed conflicts are that the property was protected under the law of armed conflict, that it was the property of an adversary, and that the destruction was not justified by military necessity.

There is no indication that any of the structures or burned objects (whether indispensable to survival or not) were making an effective contribution to military action. As such, they were protected under the law of armed conflict as civilian objects. Those that qualify as objects indispensable to survival, such as farmland and agricultural equipment and infrastructure, are subject to heightened legal protection.

For the purposes of this rule, “adversary” property includes the property of civilians who are aligned with, have some allegiance to, or otherwise belong to the adversary of the forces engaged in the destruction. The allegiance of civilians for this purpose can be established with reference to their ethnicity or place of residence (Prosecutor v. Katanga, para. 892). Applying that standard, Zaghawa residents of the villages around El-Fasher during the period of analysis would qualify as civilians aligned with the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Joint Forces (see here, here, here, and here). Given that, their property would qualify as “adversary property” for the purposes of this rule and its destruction without military necessity would therefore implicate the war crime.

In assessing whether the destruction could possibly be justified by military necessity, two details warrant emphasis. First, as noted earlier, the Yale HRL team observed no indicators of any reciprocal conduct of hostilities in any of the attacked and razed areas, some of which were razed repeatedly. Second, there is no indication that those areas were cleared to facilitate military activity. On the contrary, the vegetation overgrowth in many of the attacked villages is evidence not only of the severe diminution in agricultural work and other ordinary patterns of life, but also of the absence of any human presence, including any activity that might be expected if the destruction were essential to military maneuvers or operations that could not otherwise take place.

Finally, it should also be noted that military necessity cannot be invoked to override clear international humanitarian law (IHL) prohibitions. In that respect, the qualification of the property in this case as an object indispensable to survival is likely dispositive. Objects indispensable to survival may be destroyed only if they are being used either (i) solely for the sustenance of armed forces, or (ii) to contribute directly to the adversary’s military operations in any other way, in a context in which their destruction would not be expected to leave civilians starving or forced to move. There is nothing to indicate that either of those exceptions applies here.

Despite some contrary case law (Prosecutor v. Katanga and Ngudjolo Chui, para. 330; Prosecutor v. Katanga, paras. 893-895), it has been argued that this war crime attaches primarily to destruction occurring in contexts in which the perpetrator exercises some level of control over the property and the surrounding area (as distinct from attacks on objects during the conduct of hostilities) (Geiß & Zimmermann in Ambos, Commentary, p.661-662). Even assuming that to be the case, the absence of any indicia of reciprocal conduct of hostilities in the attacked villages is indicative of RSF control, as is the group’s ability to repeatedly raze the same areas without any effective resistance or response.

Crimes Against Humanity

To qualify as crimes against humanity, acts must occur as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. At the ICC, that attack must occur as part of a state or organizational policy. The report does not provide a direct window into an assessment of RSF policy. However, there are clear indicia of systematicity. Those indicia are also powerful evidence of an organizational policy. Most obviously, the attacks follow a common pattern of burning, destruction, and reduced or eliminated patterns of life. Moreover, RSF troops sustained that pattern over a significant period of time. The destruction is also part of a widespread operation, covering multiple villages in the vicinity of El-Fasher, inflicting unsparing damage on each of them, and affecting both the civilian population of inhabitants of the 41 villages, as well as the broader civilian population that had been dependent on these agrarian areas. To establish a crime against humanity it is sufficient to show systematicity or widespreadness; it is not necessary to prove both.

Forcible Transfer of Civilian Populations

The elimination of patterns in life in 28 of the 41 communities and the reduction in patterns of life in five more after attacks and burning is indicative of either mass killing or displacement. The forcible transfer of civilians from their homes in the attacked villages could qualify as a war crime or a crime against humanity. The crux of both crimes is the involuntary nature of the displacement, the perpetrator’s role in creating that coercive dynamic, and the lack of legal basis for the transfer of persons.

Given the observable patterns of destruction and burning, it is quite likely that displacement was effectuated by physical force. However, the criterion of coercion and involuntariness is not restricted to displacement by physical force. It may include other forms of coercion, including taking advantage of a coercive environment (ICC Elements of Crimes, p.4, n.12). Regardless of the specific interactions between RSF fighters and the village inhabitants, the burning of the latter’s homes and agricultural areas would have eliminated any genuine choice with respect to displacement. It clearly surpasses the level of coercion necessary to implicate forcible transfer. The elimination or diminution of patterns of life and the vegetation overgrowth within dwellings and fenced areas provide strong evidence of comprehensive displacement from each of the villages where these phenomena were observed, as visualized in the maps provided above.

The crime applies only when the civilians in question were lawfully present in the area from which they are removed (which is straightforwardly true in this case) and does not apply to legally authorized evacuation orders, such as those relating to military necessity or the protection of civilian security, as provided for in IHL. Here, there is no indication of any military necessity. As noted in the discussion of unnecessary destruction, other than repeat attacks in several cases, there were no subsequent military operations or maneuvers in the attacked areas. Moreover, the unlawful destruction of homes and objects indispensable to survival directly contradicts an evacuation designed to ensure civilian security. Indeed, both forms of legally authorized transfer under IHL (military necessity and civilian security) are definitionally temporary. Precluding return, the unlawful (and sometimes repeated) destruction of homes and objects indispensable to survival is incompatible with the temporariness criterion of permissible evacuation orders.

The forcible transfer war crime, unlike the parallel crime against humanity, includes an element that the transfer must be “ordered” by the perpetrator. However, in the Ntaganda case, the ICC Appeals Chamber held that this includes orders to perform acts from which the displacement of a significant proportion of civilians “would necessarily occur” (para. 544). This would not include the ordering of IHL-compliant acts from which civilian displacement is inevitable. However, for the reasons discussed above, the destruction detailed in the Yale HRL report does not fall into that category.

Extermination / Murder as Crimes Against Humanity

Murder and extermination are both crimes of killing. The key distinction is that extermination involves mass-killing, whereas murder has no massiveness threshold. If part of the explanation for reduced patterns of life in most of the attacked villages is that inhabitants were killed, that would qualify as extermination, or at the very least as murder as a crime against humanity. The current report does not attempt to identify the causes of the reduced patters of life that it documents, but a report issued in December 2025 by the Yale HRL documented systematic mass killings and body disposal in the vicinity of El-Fasher in October and November 2025—after the period covered in the current report.

A distinct way in which murder or extermination could be implicated would be through killing by starvation. It is difficult to establish this violation, due to the challenge of establishing cause of death in context where the nexus between acts of deprivation and subsequent mortality is temporally stretched and complicated by the influence of intervening factors. The Yale HRL report does not provide specific information linking the destruction of agricultural areas to lethal outcomes. It would need to be supplemented with other evidence of death, its causation, and perpetrators’ knowledge of those implications to establish either murder or extermination.

However, the report provides clear evidence of the infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population. Both the ICC Statute and the Elements of Crimes specify that this mechanism of extermination includes the deprivation of access to food and medicine. Plainly, the systematic destruction of agricultural resources in a context of catastrophic food insecurity is an example of precisely that kind of act. Additionally, it should be noted that the RSF’s destruction of agricultural resources has not occurred in isolation. As discussed above, it has occurred alongside the group’s impediment of humanitarian relief to civilians in El-Fasher and the targeting of community kitchens and markets in El-Fasher, albeit that these other actions are not the focus of the HRL report.

Although this report does not itself provide evidence of the elevated mortality arising from these practices, devastating evidence of that impact came to light after the fall of El-Fasher starting on Oct. 26, 2025. Specific evidence includes satellite imagery analysis of clusters of objects consistent in shape and size of human remains, reddish ground discoloration consistent with blood, video of RSF soldiers carrying out killings, and witness accounts. The scope of mortality is estimated to be in the tens of thousands, with limited information on those who were able to flee. It is unclear how many remain in El-Fasher at this time. Additionally, the malnutrition level among the population that fled from El-Fasher, as measured upon their arrival in Tawila, indicates a catastrophic level of food insecurity, which is strong circumstantial evidence that many of those who died in El-Fasher suffered that fate as a direct consequence of food deprivation. Combining this information with that compiled in the report offers strong evidence of extermination by starvation.

Inhumane Acts

The key difference between establishing the crime against humanity of inhumane acts and establishing those of murder or extermination is that the former does not require proving death or its cause. Instead, it must be shown that the inhumane act (here, the deprivation of objects indispensable to survival) inflicted great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health. Here, again, the HRL report provides evidence of the relevant conduct. The difference is in the nature of the evidence with which it would need to be supplemented. One of us has argued elsewhere (p.148) that the deprivation of objects indispensable to survival in contexts of emergency or worse levels of food insecurity ought to be interpreted to entail the infliction of great suffering by definition. Even if that position were not adopted, the aforementioned condition of those who escaped El-Fasher after it fell to the RSF evinces great suffering as a result of malnutrition.

Persecution

If any of the crimes detailed above were inflicted with discriminatory animus, including on ethnic or cultural grounds, persecution would also be an applicable criminal category. It is difficult to discern discriminatory intent from remote sensing of the kind employed in the Yale HRL investigation. However, the attacked villages were primarily ethnically Zaghawa, a non-Arab community, which is indicative of a possibility of discriminatory animus by the RSF, particularly if combined with other evidence that goes more directly to that intent.

Additionally, it should be noted that persecution can apply to the severe deprivation of fundamental rights “in connection” with ICC crimes. The deprivation of objects indispensable to survival in a context of catastrophic food insecurity implicates multiple fundamental rights, including those relating to life, health, food, and to be free from cruel treatment. Even assuming the starvation war crime is not available at the ICC in relation to NIACs, the severe deprivation of food “in connection with” the war crime of unnecessarily destroying adversary property (for example) could underpin a persecution charge focused on starvation as a deprivation of fundamental rights.

Genocide

Finally, the central underlying act referenced above in relation to extermination—namely, the infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population—can also qualify as an underlying act of genocide. To support a genocide charge, it would need to be combined with evidence that perpetrators possessed the specific intent to destroy a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group in whole or in part, as such. The report does not itself provide direct evidence of specific genocidal intent. However, here too, the fact that the targeted villages were primarily ethnically Zaghawa is significant. Moreover, the details in the report could be used in combination with evidence of destructive intent to support a genocide charge. In contrast to the crime against humanity of extermination, genocide does not require proving lethality or cause of death. The infliction of destructive conditions of life with genocidal intent would be sufficient.

The U.S. State Department concluded on Jan. 7, 2025 (in the final days of the Biden administration) that the RSF and RSF-aligned militias have committed genocide. On that basis, the United States sanctioned RSF leader Hemedti, together with seven RSF-owned companies located in the United Arab Emirates and one individual involved in procuring weapons for the RSF. Last month, three additional RSF commanders were added to the sanctions list for atrocities in and around El-Fasher.

As noted above, a recent U.N. Fact-Finding Mission report provided a more detailed analysis of the question, reaching the conclusion that genocidal intent was “the only reasonable inference that can be drawn” from the RSF’s pattern of conduct during the siege and subsequent fall of El-Fasher. The Yale HRL report complements and supports this analysis, providing granular detail on a specific contribution to the deterioration of conditions of life in the build-up to the siege and during its early stages.

Beyond Criminality: State Responsibility

Criminal accountability is important, but it is not the only legal function relevant to armed conflict. As each of us has emphasized elsewhere, a key principle of international humanitarian law is third states’ duty to ensure belligerents’ respect for IHL. This duty is triggered when there is a serious risk of IHL violations. That threshold has clearly been surpassed in the current situation in Sudan. The evidence of RSF violations in this report and elsewhere ought to inform external states’ assessments of what leverage they may have to bring RSF actors—and those enabling and supporting them—into compliance. Given the level of RSF reliance upon the UAE in that regard, this implies not only that the UAE itself has a duty to cease contributing to the RSF’s violations and otherwise to use its enormous influence to ensure the RSF’s compliance with IHL, but also that those with leverage over the UAE (most obviously the United States) should exercise that leverage to the same end. The United States has taken a first step with targeted sanctions, but there is much more that it—and other States—can and must do to end the suffering of civilians in Sudan.

Conclusion

The Yale HRL report represents an important step forward in providing clear and specific documentation of the events that took place in the vicinity of El-Fasher between March 31 and June 12, 2024. It includes significant evidence upon which the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC may draw as it continues its pursuit of accountability for the many crimes that have been committed in Sudan since 2005. This is small comfort for those who have survived these horrors and it will not bring back those who have not. Nonetheless, it is a step toward some measure of justice.

The Yale HRL report also offers new insights into tools and techniques for documenting international crimes using new remote sensing technology and analysis of the information it offers. These techniques offer promise not only for those seeking justice, but also for those litigating or otherwise mobilizing to demand that third-party States exercise available leverage to halt ongoing violations. The work to document what has happened stands as a rebuke to those who think they can commit their crimes with impunity by repressing the flow of information from the people and communities they victimize. The collection of the evidence in the Yale HRL report demonstrates that the world is watching and gathering the information that will be needed to eventually bring those responsible to account.

– Tom Dannenbaum and Oona A. Hathaway, Published courtesy of Just Security.