Sudan army soldiers murder prisoners and throw bodies 'to the crocodiles'
⚠️ Graphic content warning
In a new act of brutality, members of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) killed three prisoners captured from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and dumped their bodies in a canal next to the Blue Nile River. The execution took place Thursday, June 27.
Another group was executed separately and it is unknown where their bodies were disposed. The prisoners were RSF scouts, traveling on motorcycles west of Sennar, when they were ambushed and captured.
Pro-army social media influencers shared videos of the prisoners both before and after they were killed. They were seen in one video being transported alive in a pickup truck, guarded by SAF special forces, while being berated and threatened.
At the time of their capture, two of the prisoners were dressed fully in military khaki, while a third wore military pants and a black, striped t-shirt. The fourth prisoner was filmed separately at a gas station near Banat al Nafidiya village, 8 km west of Sennar, near the limit of the RSF advance after they overran Jebel Moya on Monday.
We identified several details in this video that enabled us to match it with later videos showing the men’s blood-soaked corpses, verifying that the RSF soldiers who were initially captured alive were later shot to death.
We believe the victims’ bodies were then put back in a pickup truck and driven about 12 km east toward the main SAF base in Sennar, where they were dumped on the ground and displayed as trophies. Soldiers gathered round the bodies and celebrated, calling the dead men “garbage” and mockingly using the RSF slogan, “readiness!”
Subsequently, the bodies appear to have been possibly further mutilated with additional gunfire and put back in a pickup truck.
Lastly, the dead prisoners were stripped of their uniforms and dumped in a canal. One prominent SAF influencer, Kamal Goga, bragged that the victims would be “food for the crocodiles,” before his tweet was deleted or removed.
We geolocated this video to the Gezira Project Major Canal, just above the Sennar Dam where it connects with the Blue Nile River. The bodies were put in the water a distance of only 240 meters from the main Sudanese army base in Sennar City, the 265th Air Defense Brigade Headquarters.
The prisoners were stripped of their shoes, a normal practice in Sudan used for humiliating prisoners. They were then taken out of the vehicles and executed in a field west of Sennar along the Kosti-Sennar road, according to videos filmed by SAF combatants. The killers stood over the bodies, bragging and denigrating the dead, calling them “Ethiopians” and “Chadians.” Such racial rhetoric is common among SAF soldiers who characterize the RSF as foreign mercenaries, though the majority of RSF soldiers were born in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
War crime
Desecrating enemy war dead is considered a war crime under international law, including the Hague Convention, Geneva Conventions, and Rome Statute.
Under the Rome Statute, this could be considered a “war crime of outrage upon personal dignity.” Additionally, Sudanese military law prohibits “maiming the dead bodies of the enemy” and killing prisoners of war. The latter offense is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, though this crime is rarely if ever prosecuted.
Islamic jurists likewise generally prohibit the desecration a body of combatants after they die, requiring that they be buried with dignity.
Pattern of offenses
This is not the first time that SAF and SAF-affiliated soldiers have executed prisoners. Last year in October, members of the Central Reserve Police and General Intelligence Service executed three prisoners in Omdurman, according to our investigation.
In February, members of SAF beheaded two men, whose family members later said they were innocent civilians. SAF claimed that they would investigate these killings but so far they have not announced any progress in this investigation.
Additional executions took place in Wad Madani in December 2023 shortly before the fall of that city, targeting civilians on an ethnic basis. The Centre for Information Resilience investigated several of these killings. Others killings in Wad Madani may not have been visually documented, and we received information of missing persons.
SAF have also starved prisoners and they regularly beat them and humiliate them.
The practices of the Rapid Support Forces are pretty much the same. They recently perpetrated massacres against prisoners of war in Al-Fula in West Kordofan, at Mount Kordofan near El Obeid, and in Baleela, also in West Kordofan. The RSF regularly beat prisoners and humiliate them, sometimes insulting them with racial epithets.
Support our journalism
This type of investigation requires time, skill, and resources. For each investigation that we complete, additional violations go unreported or unverified. Help us sustain this important work by donating or subscribing.
If you belong to an organization or institution that might be interested in collaborating with us, please reach out. We are open to partnerships of various kinds.