A joint investigation by CNN and the investigative newsroom Lighthouse Reports has exposed a sweeping campaign of ethnic violence carried out by Port Sudan–based forces (SAF) in Al-Jazira State, allegedly conducted under the direct knowledge of their commander, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. A senior UN investigator who reviewed the findings described the operation as a targeted genocide against non-Arab communities.
The project, known as “The Kanabi Killings”, was co-published with CNN, Sudan War Monitor and Trouw. Its findings are based on hundreds of verified videos, testimonies from survivors, satellite imagery, and whistleblower accounts from within Sudan’s military intelligence structure. Together, they reveal a pattern of atrocities committed between October 2024 and May 2025 as al-Burhan’s army (SAF) pushed to retake the strategic city of Wad Madani.
A coordinated ethnic campaign
The investigation concludes that General al-Burhan’s army (SAF), operating from Port Sudan and supported by Islamist-aligned militias, carried out a coordinated campaign targeting the “Kanabi” — predominantly non-Arab, Black Sudanese farming communities often labelled by militias as “Sudan’s Blacks”.
At least 59 attacks on Kanabi villages were fully verified, with 87 more likely following the same pattern.
Survivors described mass executions, point-blank killings, detention sweeps, and field executions of civilians suspected of sympathising with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Women and girls were subjected to systematic rape used as a tool of war. Entire villages along the Wad Madani road were burned, markets and clinics destroyed, and civilian populations forcibly displaced in what investigators describe as ethnic cleansing conducted under the guise of “security operations”.
Indiscriminate airstrikes struck densely populated neighbourhoods in Al-Jazira, killing hundreds, including children. Lighthouse Reports notes that the attacks were not isolated incidents but formed part of a wider set of ethnically-motivated operations coordinated from the highest levels of SAF and Sudan’s General Intelligence Service.
The Kariba detentions and the Police Bridge massacre
CNN and Lighthouse verified footage from the village of Kariba showing young men detained, beaten, and accused of RSF affiliation. In another location near what locals call the Police Bridge, dozens of bodies — some with gunshot wounds to the head — were filmed lying on the ground. A fighter in one video is heard calling the victims “foreign”, echoing militia rhetoric used against non-Arab communities.
Satellite images taken days later show disturbed earth and rows of white objects resembling body bags at the site, consistent with a hastily dug mass grave. A whistleblower from the General Intelligence Service confirmed that many of those killed at the Police Bridge were civilians executed based on suspicion alone.
Bodies dumped in canals
Multiple intelligence officers told CNN that SAF and allied militias disposed of victims by throwing bodies into irrigation canals. Some civilians, they said, were shot while still alive before being dumped into the water.
One of the most disturbing scenes documented in the investigation occurred near the village of Bikka. In early 2025, residents reported that soldiers used a canal as a dumping site for executed civilians. When the water level later dropped, videos and satellite imagery revealed dozens of bodies lying exposed in the canal bed.
Burhan above the bodies
Whistleblowers told CNN that only days after the killings, General al-Burhan visited the same canal and recorded a public address to his troops from the bank — just metres from where the bodies lay submerged.
Satellite imagery taken in May 2025 confirms that when the canal receded, numerous corpses became visible directly below the position where al-Burhan had stood during the filmed visit. One intelligence source said plainly: “Burhan knew.”
The retaking of Wad Madani
The worst abuses occurred in January 2025 during the SAF push to retake Wad Madani from the RSF. Lighthouse Reports notes that violence escalated in every area SAF re-entered, especially along the approach routes where Kanabi communities are concentrated.
Investigators emphasise that the atrocities were not spontaneous but followed a systematic pattern: detentions, interrogations, summary executions, burning of villages, disposal of bodies, and the destruction of infrastructure to make areas uninhabitable.
UN experts: Genocide on ethnic grounds
A member of the UN Fact-Finding Mission who reviewed the evidence described the campaign as “a targeted genocide on racial and ethnic grounds”, adding that the scale of documented attacks suggests deliberate policy rather than rogue actions.
Impunity as the enabler
The investigation concludes that a culture of impunity enables ongoing atrocities. Porter Sudan authorities have not opened serious inquiries into the conduct of their forces, and whistleblowers say commanders instructed units to conceal evidence, including through mass burials and canal disposal.
Lighthouse Reports and CNN say their evidence base — videos, satellite data, and insider testimony — demonstrates that senior officials, including al-Burhan, were aware of the killings.
