type: timeline_event The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned three Rapid Support Forces commanders on February 20, 2026, for their roles in the 18-month siege of El-Fasher in Darfur, Sudan. The sanctioned individuals were Brigadier General Abu Lulu, Major General Abu Shok, and field commander Al Zeir Salem, all identified as directly responsible for operations during which the RSF carried out systematic ethnic killings, torture, deliberate starvation, and sexual violence against approximately 260,000 trapped civilians. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a statement calling for an immediate ceasefire.
The sanctions froze any US-based assets held by the three commanders and prohibited US persons from conducting transactions with them. However, the practical impact was widely expected to be minimal, as RSF field commanders in Darfur were unlikely to hold significant US-dollar assets or depend on access to the American financial system. Human rights organizations noted that the RSF itself was not designated as an organization, nor were the Gulf state backers who had provided the militia with weapons, funding, and diplomatic cover throughout the conflict.
Critics characterized the sanctions as performative accountability—a gesture calibrated to create the appearance of action while leaving the broader architecture of genocide-enabling support intact. The narrow targeting of three individual commanders, rather than the RSF's organizational leadership or its state sponsors, reflected a pattern in which the US used sanctions as a tool of moral signaling rather than meaningful pressure. The ongoing siege of El-Fasher, which continued unabated despite the designations, demonstrated the gap between the rhetoric of human rights enforcement and the willingness to impose costs on the powerful actors whose support made the atrocities possible.