SUDAN’S Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group is trying to cover up mass killings in the city of el-Fasher, a new report revealed today.

A research team from Yale University in the United States said the United Arab Emirates-backed RSF have been trying to burn and bury bodies to hide their crimes.

The RSF have faced accusations from across the international community that they have carried out executions and raped women after its fighters captured el-Fasher in October.

Analysis of satellite images by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) suggests that the RSF has likely disposed of tens of thousands of bodies after seizing the city.

The HRL’s report said the data suggests the RSF “engaged in a systematic multi-week campaign to destroy evidence of its widespread mass killings” and “this pattern of body disposal and destruction is ongoing.”

The satellite imagery found more than 80 clusters spread across multiple locations that were changing in size during the weeks after el-Fasher fell, the HRL says.

The HRL says this demonstrates ongoing efforts by the RSF to clean up evidence of the massacres they have carried out.

The paramilitary group has been fighting Sudan’s Egypt and Saudi Arabia backed military since April 2023, when a power struggle between the two parties erupted into open fighting.

The Egyptians, Saudis and the UAE all claim that they are not involved in the conflict.

What is not in dispute is the scale of the humanitarian crisis that has hit the people of Sudan. Many aid organisations and the United Nations have described the conflict as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

The UN says at least 21.2 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, 9.5m people are displaced internally, 4.35m people have fled the country and 10m children are out of school with classrooms destroyed, occupied, or unsafe to reach.

The UN has also been one of the leading voices accusing the RSF of massacring civilians as el-Fasher fell.

The RSF has not responded for comment, but its leader, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has previously acknowledged that his fighters had committed some violations in el-Fasher.

Efforts to broker a peace deal in Sudan have resumed.

The leader of Sudan’s military General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on December 15, expressing readiness to work with United States President Donald Trump on peace efforts.

The following day, Egypt and the US rejected a proposal to divide Sudan and called for a comprehensive ceasefire.