A video has emerged of Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters in Sudan suspending a young woman from a tree.

The video, from North Darfur, shows the militia torturing 22-year-old Gisma Ali Omer. She is hanging from a tree by her arms, and the fighter shows his face, looking proud.

A young unarmed Sudanese woman is filmed by a member of the UAE-backed RSF militia hanging from a tree by pieces of rope tied across her arms.

This is what the United Arab Emirates is funding, orchestrating and supporting for almost two years in the Darfour region. pic.twitter.com/VWd4Np7bSj

— Ghous Alikhan (@AlikhanGho69458) September 11, 2025

Genocide

Sudan’s civil war began in April 2023, as fighting broke out between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

Since then, the war has displaced over 13m people, with 30m people needing assistance and 25m “experiencing acute hunger”. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has described the situation as a catastrophe of “staggering scale and brutality.”

“More than 150,000 people have died across the country, and about 12 million have fled their homes in what the UN has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis” Social media doesn’t speak about Sudan enough. We need to speak up the same way we did for Palestine https://t.co/xHunDw3RKd

— shay (@shayararar) October 21, 2025

The RSF

In 2013, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo formally established the RSF. It was previously accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the region’s non-Arab population. But even before 2013, it had around 5,000 active militia which were armed and active.

Back in 2003, Sudan’s then-leader, Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, mobilised Arab herders to fight against Black African insurgents in Darfur. Then, between 2003 and 2005, the government of Sudan, with the aid of Janjaweed militias, carried out mass atrocities against the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit communities in Darfur.

Armed conflict and targeted killings in Darfur caused about 300,000 civilian deaths and displaced around 2.7m people.

As the Canary previously reported, Human Rights Watch has accused the RSF of ethnic cleansing of the Masalit ethnic group and other non-Arab groups.

HRW added that the widespread killings raised the possibility that the RSF and their allies had “the intent to destroy in whole or in part” the Massalit people, which constitutes a genocide.

The US has accused Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the RSF, of “systematic atrocities”.

He also controls some of Sudan’s gold mines and smuggles the metal to the UAE.

This is the evil that the UAE are sponsoring against non Arab groups in Sudan through the RSF to secure and loot resources most especially Gold.

What we are seeing is a proxy war and a genocide perpetrated through famine, rape and destruction. https://t.co/lmiAKOPBe9

— Typical African (@Joe__Bassey) October 21, 2025

The Sudanese army has accused the UAE of backing the RSF and carrying out strikes in Sudan, which, of course, the UAE denies.

The UAE are also just as evil and genocidal as Israël but because they’re also our allies, we let them do whatever the fuck they want.

And we have millionnaires athletes and comedians getting paid by them to entertain their royal family.

Disgusting… https://t.co/a85cyeeFub

— Ana Frenchy (@anais_frenchy) October 21, 2025

The RSF terrorist group in Sudan are waging brutal wars against innocent Black Sudanese civilians. This is unacceptable and we hold UAE Government, who are funding and financing the terrorist group, responsible for these crimes.

We would like to call on @_AfricanUnion and… https://t.co/N9yqdS4otW

— African Observatory (@AfricanWatchman) October 21, 2025

A United Nations investigation concluded that the RSF and its allied militias had:

Committed the war crimes of violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; committing outrages upon personal dignity; rape, sexual slavery and any form of indecent assault; pillage; conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 or using them to participate actively in hostilities; intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population; intentionally directing attacks against persons and objects involved in humanitarian assistance and other specially protected objects; and ordering the displacement of the civilian population for reasons related to the conflict. The Fact-Finding Mission further considers that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the RSF has committed the crimes against humanity of murder; torture; enslavement; rape, sexual slavery, and acts of a sexual nature of comparable gravity; persecution on the basis of intersecting ethnic and gender grounds in connection with the foregoing acts; and forcible displacement of population

Additionally, it found that the SAF and its allied forces had:

Committed the war crimes of violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.

Massacres

The UAE-backed RSF have committed massacre after massacre in Sudan.

Al Jazeera reported that:

In one village, Shag Alnom, more than 200 people were killed in a “terrible massacre”, the group said. The victims were either “burned inside their homes” or shot. In the neighbouring villages, 38 other civilians were also killed and dozens more have been forcibly disappeared.

Emergency Lawyers also condemned RSF for turning villages full of civilians into military targets:

Unfortunately this is happening on a daily basis in sudan and the world media has imposed a near total blackout https://t.co/WWnHgmaQIn

— Awes mahadi ❁ (@Mahadi_mohamed6) October 21, 2025

Back in July, a senior prosecutor for the International Criminal Court found that:

On the basis of our independent investigations, the position of our office is clear. We have reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur

She also added that there was an “inescapable pattern” of offending, which targets gender and ethnicity through rape and sexual violence.

Sudanese girls & women are being tortured. Sudanese girls & women are being tortured. Sudanese girls & women are being tortured. Sudanese girls & women are being tortured. Sudanese girls &women are being tortured. Sudanese girls & women are being tortured https://t.co/EQPr4FVhSf

— MUTUAL AID BOOST (@MutualAidBoost) October 20, 2025

As Raga Makawi wrote for the New Internationalist, there has been:

A long and systematic history of violence against women in Sudan.

Makawi pointed to a confluence of laws designed to criminalise and subjugate women. Both RSF armed militias and government security forces have perpetrated mass sexual violence to intimidate and assert control, making women’s bodies a ‘battleground’ in the ongoing conflict.

In short, Makawi summed up that:

Women in Sudan today are once again the victims of mass atrocities committed by armed actors in pursuit of political and economic gain.

This footage of RSF forces torturing Omer is visual evidence of these heinous crimes against Sudanese women from marginalised groups. It’s a reminder that the cost of conflict and genocide is a gendered one – and it is often shouldered by women and girls from oppressed communities most of all.

Feature image via The Canary

By HG

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