43 attacks on health sites in el-Fasher, the BBC says

Sudan's Rapid Support Forces systematically attacked hospitals during the siege and capture of el-Fasher, a BBC investigation says, prompting the UN human rights chief to raise possible war crimes. ^[1]

The investigation, published on October 22, 2026, documented at least 43 separate attacks on hospitals and other healthcare sites between May 2024 and October 2025. Some facilities were hit repeatedly as medical workers moved patients and equipment from one damaged site to another. ^[1]

The findings describe the progressive destruction of care in a city caught in Sudan's civil war, which began between the RSF and the Sudanese military in April 2023. By the RSF's takeover of el-Fasher, in Darfur, in October 2025, the BBC said Saudi Hospital was the city's only functioning health facility. ^[1]

Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, called the findings "deeply disturbing". He said his office's own monitoring showed that the RSF repeatedly struck major hospitals and makeshift health facilities, damaging or destroying them and undermining access to care for thousands of civilians. ^[1]

Türk said attacks on civilian infrastructure, including health facilities, were serious violations of international humanitarian law. His assessment is not a court judgment. ^[1]

The RSF rejected the findings through its health minister, Dr Alaa Eldin Nugud, who described the allegations as "propaganda". He said the medics and other witnesses were aligned with the Sudanese army and its allies. ^[1]

Care moved, and attacks followed

The BBC's chronology follows healthcare through successive closures and relocations. Some facilities stopped operating within weeks of the war's start. After the Teaching Hospital ceased operating, services moved to South Hospital, which was shelled several times in late May and early June 2024. ^[1]

The investigation described South Hospital as a crowded surgical centre when it came under fire. On June 8, 2024, according to the BBC, RSF fighters raided it. Hospital director Izzeldin Ahmed Dawaud Asow told the BBC that fighters beat him and that he survived by pretending to be dead. ^[1]

After South Hospital closed, staff and equipment moved to Saudi Maternity Hospital. Six doctors interviewed by the BBC described systematic targeting there, including days when the hospital was struck up to 25 times. Replacement sites used by a children's hospital and a dialysis centre were also attacked after their original facilities closed or relocated, the investigation said. ^[1]

Its figures also record losses among the people providing that care. Between April 2023 and October 2025, the BBC's data counted 55 medical workers killed, 120 injured and 10 forcibly disappeared or abducted in el-Fasher. That period begins more than a year before the documented series of 43 attacks. ^[1]

Nugud denied that medical workers had been forcibly abducted, saying they had chosen to remain and work. ^[1]

Patients under fire

Dr Asow described attacks during attempts to move wounded people. He told the BBC that a drone struck people carrying injured patients to a temporary ward on March 15, 2025, killing nine. He also said a drone hit a donkey cart transferring patients on August 17, killing two patients and the driver. ^[1]

The chronology culminates on October 25, 2025, when the BBC said RSF fighters stormed the hospital amid allegations that more than 460 patients and companions were killed. The RSF denied that a massacre occurred. ^[1]

The BBC said the World Health Organization condemned the reported killings and that satellite imagery appeared to show clusters of bodies. ^[1]

The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières had earlier said it did not know whether hospitals were being intentionally targeted, according to the BBC. It nevertheless said the belligerents were failing to take precautions to spare them. ^[1]

The dispute over protection

Nugud offered a specific defence concerning South Hospital, saying it had been used as a military base. The BBC said it found no independent evidence supporting that allegation. Doctors said the hospital was not part of a military base and that they went there during the war to collect medical equipment. The Darfur regional government also rejected Nugud's charges. ^[1]

Whether a hospital was used for military purposes can affect its protection under international law. Establishing what happened at each site, and at the time of each attack, is therefore essential to assessing responsibility. A general assertion about military use cannot resolve an attack-by-attack account.

The deliberate-targeting findings remain attributed to the BBC and its interviewees. Independent corroboration of the full chronology, a verified toll from the October hospital storming, and evidence identifying who ordered or enabled particular attacks have yet to be established. ^[1]

The investigation says both sides in Sudan's war have faced accusations over attacks on health facilities. Here, its detailed chronology puts the RSF's conduct in el-Fasher under scrutiny, following the movement of care as successive places of treatment became unusable. ^[1]

The RSF-backed government now runs healthcare in the city and has released videos showing Saudi Hospital and the Teaching Hospital reopened and receiving some patients, according to the BBC. Nugud said South Hospital was also set to reopen. ^[1]

Those facilities' reopening creates an immediate test for the authorities now in control: whether civilians can reach reliable care. Alongside that stands the accountability task raised by Türk's response, establishing responsibility for the attacks that drove patients and staff from hospital to hospital.