Sudan investigation maps commanders linked to wartime rape

On the day the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) entered el-Fasher in October 2025, a video posted on TikTok showed one of the paramilitary group’s commanders addressing fighters. She appeared to be encouraging fighters to rape women in Sudan’s Northern State, hundreds of kilometres from el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. “The Northern State? You’ll just go for its women, so you cleanse their lineage and bring [brave] sons just like you.” The speaker was Khademallah Khashmin Herika, also known as Shiraz Khalid, a major commanding the RSF’s female contingent, according to the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR). The British open-source investigative organisation describes her words as an explicit incitement to rape.