USA

Franklin Graham: "This Is The Face of Radical Islam" After 2,000+ Massacred in Sudan

Michael Ringer

02 Nov 2025 — 4 min read

El-Fasher, Sudan - Evangelist Franklin Graham condemned "radical Islam" after receiving videos showing paramilitary fighters executing civilians following the Rapid Support Forces' (RSF) capture of el-Fasher, the last government-held city in Darfur, on Monday, October 28, 2025.

Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse and son of the late Rev. Billy Graham, said the footage, which includes people being shot in the head and "piles of bodies," was too graphic to share publicly.

The Sudanese government reported on Wednesday that more than 2,000 civilians were killed since RSF entered the city. The RSF had already expelled Sudanese army troops from the region in recent weeks, marking a new stage in a war that has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced over 14 million since 2023.

"This is the face of radical Islam. We've been working in Sudan for over 30 years, and our hearts break for this country," Graham wrote on Facebook, calling on people to pray for civilians being "murdered as you read this."

Graham claimed RSF fighters were "just killing for the sake of killing," calling the group's actions evidence of radical Islam. "A massacre is taking place in Sudan, and the world has pretty much ignored it," he wrote.

Videos verified by BBC reporters show RSF fighters carrying out executions in and around el-Fasher. One clip, geolocated to a university building, showed an armed man in RSF attire shooting an unarmed man sitting among dozens of corpses. Another video showed a fighter known as Abu Lulu opening fire on nine unarmed captives with other RSF members cheering.

BBC Verify reported that several executions appeared to take place outside the city in sandy rural areas, but at least one video was verified to be inside el-Fasher. Satellite images reviewed by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab appeared to confirm the aftermath of mass killings, showing body-sized clusters in areas of the city not previously disturbed.

United Nations coordinator for Sudan Denise Brown told BBC she had received "credible reports of summary executions" of unarmed men in el-Fasher following the RSF's entry. Killings of unarmed civilians or surrendering combatants violate the Geneva Convention and are classified as war crimes.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is calling for "urgent international action" amid reports of civilian atrocities. "The images and reporting emerging from El Fasher are horrific," CSW Founder President Mervyn Thomas said. "Images of RSF fighters humiliating, torturing and killing civilians are just a snapshot of the devastating violence that civilians in El Fasher have been enduring for the past 18 months and are now being subjected to without any protection. We are also deeply disturbed by the number of RSF fighters who appear to be children recruited to perpetrate unimaginable violence."

The RSF, led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), emerged from the Janjaweed militia that terrorized non-Arab populations in the Darfur genocide during the early 2000s. The militia's founder, Sudan's former President Omar al-Bashir, was indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide in 2009.

The current war began in 2023 after the breakdown of a fragile alliance between Dagalo's RSF and Sudanese army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan. Both factions have replenished their ranks using foreign weapons and fighters.

The Sudanese army has filed a case at the International Court of Justice accusing the UAE of breaching the Genocide Convention by supporting the RSF. The UAE rejected the case as a "publicity stunt." The army also accused Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar of aiding the RSF with weapons and troops.

The RSF has declared its intention to form a parallel government in the areas under its control, including large parts of Darfur and Kordofan. As of this week, the Sudanese army controls most of Sudan's north and east, including Khartoum, while the RSF holds nearly all of Darfur and parts of Kordofan.

THE CRUSADER'S OPINION

Franklin Graham doesn't mince words. "This is the face of radical Islam." He's right.

Two thousand civilians executed in days. Videos of fighters cheering as they murder unarmed captives. Bodies stacked like firewood. Child soldiers recruited to commit "unimaginable violence." And the world yawns. When Graham says the world has "pretty much ignored it," he's being generous. The world has completely ignored it.

This is the same Rapid Support Forces descended from the Janjaweed militia that committed genocide in Darfur twenty years ago. Same playbook. Same Islamic supremacist ideology. Same contempt for human life. Different year. The International Criminal Court indicted their founder for genocide in 2009. Sixteen years later, his successors are finishing what he started, and nobody's stopping them.

Graham has worked in Sudan for three decades. He knows this isn't "armed conflict" or "ethnic tension." It's Islamic jihad, pure and simple. Killing for the sake of killing. And while the UN issues "credible reports" and the ICC files papers, Christians and non-Arab Africans are being slaughtered en masse. Sudan is the world's largest humanitarian crisis. Fourteen million displaced. Forty thousand dead. And rising. When will we stop pretending this isn't religious persecution?