The UK on Friday announced sanctions against senior figures in Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), accusing them of orchestrating “heinous violence” during the paramilitary group’s October takeover of El-Fasher, the last army-held city in Darfur.
The Foreign Office said the measures target RSF deputy leader Abdelrahim Hamdan Daglo — brother of RSF chief Mohammad Hamdan Daglo — along with three other commanders. British officials accuse them of overseeing “mass killings, systematic sexual violence and deliberate attacks on civilians” as the RSF forced Sudanese army units from the city.
The sanctions include asset freezes and travel bans.
According to the UK government, the RSF’s actions in El-Fasher were “not random” but part of a coordinated campaign “to terrorise populations and seize control through fear and violence.” Satellite imagery cited by London reportedly shows mass graves where victims were burned and buried. The sanctions, it said, send a message that “those who commit atrocities will be held to account.”
The European Union imposed its own sanctions on Abdelrahim Hamdan Daglo last month.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper condemned the violence in Sudan as “so horrific they scar the conscience of the world,” citing “overwhelming evidence” of mass executions, starvation tactics, and the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war. “The UK will not look away, and we will always stand with the people of Sudan,” she said.
Darfur’s army-aligned governor, Minni Minawi, welcomed the UK’s move as “an important step” toward accountability but argued the measures “remain incomplete” without sanctions on RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, whom he described as “the decision-maker and the direct architect of the violence system.”
Alongside the sanctions, the UK announced £21 million ($28 million) in new humanitarian aid for Sudan, aimed at providing food, clean water, healthcare, and protection for women and children in areas hardest hit by the conflict. The package brings total UK aid to Sudan this year to £146 million.