How ‘Trophy’ Videos Link Paramilitary Commanders to War Crimes in Sudan

[EXPLOSION] “The people are running away from the bombing. People are dying. We just send this to the nation to see what is happening in Nuba Mountains.” [GUNSHOTS] “Yeah.” Sudan is in the grip of a brutal civil war. Eleven million people have been driven from their homes, and tens of thousands have been killed. As a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces — [CRIES] — battles the Sudanese Army for control of the country. The U.N. has accused both sides of abuses. But a six-month investigation by The New York Times shows that the R.S.F. is committing systemic atrocities across Sudan, including ethnic cleansing – often under the watch of its commanders. The opaque structure of the R.S.F. makes it hard to identify the leaders responsible. But by analyzing dozens of slick propaganda videos, where the commanders are presented as benevolent actors, we mapped out for the first time a command structure of at least 20 key figures and the regions they operate in. R.S.F. fighters under these commanders often film atrocities themselves, evidence that may one day hold perpetrators to account. So The Times teamed up with researchers at C.I.R.‘s Sudan Witness Project to collect these videos as the R.S.F. moved across Sudan. We analyzed fire signals and images collected by satellites, too. We interviewed an R.S.F. commander on the front line. And we spoke to witnesses to the war by partnering with Ayin Media, a network of reporters working anonymously in Sudan. Taken together, the evidence traces a playbook of terror being waged by the R.S.F. in multiple states. And locates Commanders like these — at or very near the sites of crimes. Sudan has been here before. Almost two decades ago, a notorious militia called the Janjaweed, meaning devils on horseback, carried out a genocide in Darfur. Over 300,000 people were estimated to have been killed. A former Janjaweed commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or Hemeti, now leads the Rapid Support Forces, along with his brother Abdul Rahim as his deputy. And their fighters are using the tactics of Darfur from 20 years ago, in today’s civil war. We documented three broad patterns of abuse — executing unarmed captives, deliberately torching communities and directly abusing civilians, including with sexual violence. R.S.F. fighters can be identified by their uniform. They wear light camouflage, often with a Sudanese flag on one sleeve and a distinctive logo on the other. They sometimes recruit mercenaries and fight alongside loose-knit militias, who are usually in plain clothes. And many have scarves known as kadamols wrapped around their heads. We often hear them use the language of ethnic cleansing. Sudan’s army is also accused of war crimes, including deliberately starving civilians, shelling hospitals and indiscriminate airstrikes. [WARPLANE FLYING] As many as 200 people were reportedly killed in airstrikes earlier this month in Darfur. But in this investigation — — we documented abuses by the R.S.F. on a much wider scale — — that may amount to crimes against humanity. One of the commanders we found at the site of several atrocities is Hussein Barsham. He usually directs fighting in the Kordofan region, and that’s where we find him in October 2023, when the R.S.F. seized Baleela Airport and a major oil field nearby. Barsham celebrates by the front of the terminal, but video filmed on the other side shows what their victory looks like — [RAPID GUNFIRE] — fighters executing a group of captives. A warning — these videos are very graphic. So we’ve blurred some scenes. As the person filming enters this parking lot, a gunman is firing into a pile of bodies on the ground. [GUNSHOTS] R.S.F. fighters circle the victims and applaud the killing. Fourteen bodies in total. Many of them are wearing the dark fatigues typical of the Sudanese army, who were defending the airport. They are now unarmed, and to execute them would be a war crime. In addition to our analysis, a doctor with expertise in conflict-related injuries told us there are signs that that’s exactly what happened here. The blood is fresh. Several of the bodies are twitching, indicating they were recently killed. The blood splatter matches the gunshot wounds, and some of the body positions suggest they were killed here, not moved after the fight. Barsham is nearby, showing off the jacket of a Sudanese soldier. A satellite image taken on Oct. 30 shows the execution site, confirming the men were killed on that day. Barsham was just 100 yards away. He’s at the scene, commanding his forces around the time of the executions. Under the laws of war, he may bear responsibility if he ordered this crime or did nothing to prevent it. Eight months later, we found Barsham with three more R.S.F. commanders, Salih Al Futi, Al Taj Al Tijani and a field commander with the nom de guerre John Garang, when their fighters carried out another execution. This time it was in El Fula, the capital of West Kordofan. On June 20, we see a large convoy of R.S.F. fighters rolling into the town. [CHEERING] They spread out between streets of homes — — brag about men they had killed — — and threaten others taken captive. Hundreds of Sudanese soldiers defending El Fula had fled south earlier that day, and the R.S.F. easily overruns the city. [GUNSHOTS] Barsham is there among them. Al Tijani, too, standing alongside Barsham. And nearby, fighters swarm around Salih Al Futi as he walks. During the attack, the R.S.F. rounds up 20 men and takes them just outside the town. An unidentified fighter says that he recognizes one of the men as an army officer. A few of the men are wearing military fatigues but none of them are armed. Then, just as they did at Baleela Airport, the R.S.F. opened fire. [GUNSHOTS] The field commander, who goes by John Garang, is with them. In the fray, they laud their senior commanders, Al Tijani and Al Futi. Al Tijani, Al Futi and Barsham are not in the videos of these executions. But by analyzing footage of them that day, we know they were less than a mile away. And we know they’re in El Fula around the same time as the executions because the shadows in both sets of videos match. These commanders know each other. They’re repeatedly filmed together in West Kordofan. And in the eight months between the executions at Baleela and El Fula, they appear to have done nothing to stop their fighters’ behavior. One of the war’s most notorious episodes was the execution of the then governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abakar. In June 2023, he was captured by the R.S.F. hours after he publicly criticized the group. Video shows him being forced inside a building by a commander, Abdelrahman Joma Barakallah. This was the last time he was seen alive. Video filmed hours later showed his bloodied body. Governor Abakar’s killing happened during a campaign of ethnic violence targeting his tribe, the Masalit community in El Geneina, the same group the Janjaweed terrorized decades ago. Mariam Mohammed Ismael is among half a million Sudanese who fled the violence to Chad. The R.S.F. laid waste to El Geneina, burning down or destroying close to one quarter of the city’s 300,000 buildings, just as the Janjaweed did decades ago. And they’ve used fire as a method of war across the rest of Darfur and beyond for almost two years. In Kutum, in North Darfur, entire communities have been destroyed since October. Satellite images show no natural fire path between burned homes, and multiple villages are separately burned. These are telltale signs of arson. Hundreds of miles away in Al Takmah, we catch R.S.F. fighters in the act. They’re jubilant — — as homes and shops burn. They destroyed half the town. At a military base the R.S.F. seized in Sidrah, a commander oversees the burning. A fighter walks into view, holding a torch and burning down huts. The one he just passed is now ablaze, and the group gloats as they burn. A field commander named Al Gouja is nearby — — bragging as even more huts go up in flames. Al Gouja is not the only commander implicated in scorched earth tactics. We found four R.S.F. commanders directing attacks during a deadly monthlong assault in North Darfur: Al Nour Al Guba and Geddo Hamdan Abu Shouk, both high-ranking commanders, and Ali Rizkallah and Zeer Salim, both lower-ranking field commanders. For weeks, they oversaw a brutal campaign to capture the state’s capital, El Fasher, from Sudan’s army and forces allied with them. The R.S.F. encircled the city in April. Dozens of outlying villages were torched in attacks targeting the Zaghawa ethnic group. The siege forced a heavily pregnant Ekhlas Adam Ali El Haj to flee her home village of Tawila. She reached the village near Golo Dam. It’s here, in Golo Dam, that we find the first of the North Darfur commanders, Ali Rizkallah, telling passersby not to leave, that they’re safe. The reservoir in Golo Dam was the main water source for the area, serving more than 200,000 people. Rizkallah ordered it to be turned off. Ekhlas escaped again, this time to a school in El Fasher. But the R.S.F. pushed into the city. This is where we see another three commanders on the front line — Zeer Salim, the lower-ranking commander, and Al Guba and Abu Shouk, the senior commanders. An R.S.F. field commander in El Fasher confirmed to us that the senior commanders are in charge. We’re going to focus here on 48 hours on June 1 and 2, when we see these commanders together as a whole neighborhood is torched. Zeer Salim is regularly filmed fighting on the streets with his forces. On June 1, he appears in another video, not fighting this time but giving the call to prayer inside a mosque. We located the mosque to eastern El Fasher. The next day, Zeer Salim is out in the street, just two blocks from the mosque. [GUNSHOTS] That same day, he’s with his superior officers, Al Guba and Abu Shouk, 1,000 feet from the mosque as they rally their troops. All around this area, clusters of buildings were burned down as the R.S.F. took control, and on June 1, even more buildings were torched. The R.S.F. commander denied responsibility and blamed the Sudanese Army bombing. There are some signs of bombardment, but most of the destruction that we analyzed is consistent with the R.S.F. scorched-earth tactics. A mile away from the mosque, a neighborhood the size of 10 city blocks in Manhattan is ablaze that morning. Multiple fires appear to have been ignited around the same time, where members of the Zaghawa ethnic group were believed to be living. This is evidence of a targeted ground-based attack, researchers from the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University say. By August, more than 20,000 structures were damaged or destroyed, many by fire. The devastation is heavily concentrated in the eastern part of the city, the area of R.S.F. advance. Arafa Ali Yagoub was living in this area, and she recalled the R.S.F. terrorizing them before they fled. Her husband was abducted. Arafa was displaced from her home by the Janjaweed when she was a child, and now by the R.S.F. The senior commanders on the ground in El Fasher, Al Guba and Abu Shouk, were both in the Janjaweed and have led R.S.F. forces in North Darfur for years. Abu Shouk is a relative of the R.S.F. leader Hemeti, and he has a history of ethnic violence with Zaghawa rivals, who his forces targeted again in El Fasher. The presence of these high-ranking commanders in El Fasher — — shows the significance of this campaign to the R.S.F., and it unwittingly links them to these atrocities. Ekhlas, Arafa and many thousands more were forced to flee, this time back to Ekhlas’s home in Tawila. When Ekhlas reached her home, even that had been looted. The terror that Ekhlas and Arafa endured in El Fasher is being inflicted on ordinary civilians throughout Sudan. Countless videos show the R.S.F. whipping people. Beating them, sometimes shooting them. [GUNSHOTS] And forcing them to make animal noises. In October, the R.S.F. repeatedly attacked civilians in Gezira State, after Abu Aqla Kaykal, an R.S.F. commander from that area — — defected to Sudan’s army. This triggered a wave of retaliation by the R.S.F. Across Kaykal’s home state. Villages in Gezira were also attacked when Kaykal was in the R.S.F. But this time, they specifically targeted the tribe he was from. Hundreds were killed in a matter of weeks. One of the towns invaded by the R.S.F. is Al Seriha. An R.S.F. commander leading that campaign is Al Gouja, who we saw when huts were torched earlier. Here he is, 300 yards from Al Seriha, shooting at it and directing R.S.F. fighters around him. Once inside, they round up men and hold them. We don’t see what happens next. But the R.S.F. reportedly kills more than 100 people here. Simultaneous attacks were happening in villages right across the eastern Gezira region. In many places, the R.S.F. round up the men of the area or force them to run away at gunpoint. [GUN COCKS] Witnesses we spoke to were terrified. They stole Ammar El Awad Alam’s herd of goats. The R.S.F. emptied Al Seriha and many other villages. And the fighters gloated about their ethnic cleansing. The attacks triggered another exodus. 150,000 people left in two weeks. They are among over eight million people now displaced in Sudan, and millions more who have fled to neighboring countries. Evidence we collected of the R.S.F. rampage in Gezira match multiple accounts of another type of abuse — sexual violence. Survivors have given testimony to experts we interviewed, including Hala Al Karib, head of SIHA, a women’s advocacy group. Her team also received testimonials of rape in several towns in Gezira, particularly around the area that Kaykal was from. Tambul, Rufaa and Azraq are among the villages R.S.F. fighters bragged that they had destroyed. Experts we spoke to said that separating men from their families, as we see in Gezira, is a key indicator of sexual violence. Witnesses rarely talked directly about sexual violence, but they feared for the women and girls in their communities. Hanan Abbakar Al Tahir recalled R.S.F. fighters leering at her in her home in Gezira. They also killed a man for defending women. As Al-Nazeer fled his home, the R.S.F. beat him when he objected to women in his group being harassed. And later, he was shot. Human Rights Watch, the U.N. and other groups have documented sexual violence in at least five states in Sudan since the conflict broke out. Decades on from the genocide in Darfur, just one person has been put on trial at the International Criminal Court. This time, there may be a stronger prospect for accountability. The videos that fighters perceive as trophies of their exploits are regarded by the prosecutor of the I.C.C. as something else — evidence. “So we can piece together the different types of evidence sets that are available now, from phones, from video and audio recordings, that are also proving to be extremely critical to pierce the veil of impunity.” In this investigation, the footage allowed us to find 10 commanders overseeing potential crimes and identify the areas of operation of many more. Their leader, General Dagalo, or Hemeti, may bear ultimate responsibility. Over and over, fighters pay fealty to him. And the field commander we spoke to said that they take orders from the top. In almost two years of war, Hemeti has failed to stop them from carrying out abuses. But there are glimmers of hope. The survivors we spoke to recalled the kindness of strangers, fellow citizens who offered food, shelter or protection as they fled. What they need now is for the violence to end.