Distinguishable by his long hair and extreme brutality, RSF commander Abu Lulu became the public face of the October 2025 massacre in al-Fashir, Sudan, after broadcasting numerous videos of himself slaughtering unarmed civilians. In one video, the commander stands in front of a cowering group of men, aiming his gun at them imposingly. One by one, the paramilitary fighter proceeds to shoot the group of nine at point-blank range, leaving their bodies in a heap on the ground as soldiers cheer and chant his name.
In other chilling footage, he can be seen smiling as he mocks three men begging for their lives. The warlord, dubbed the 'butcher of the century' after appearing in multiple videos on his TikTok committing summary executions, ignores their pleas and shoots them. He is understood to have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers and features in videos boasting that he may have been personally responsible for slaughtering more than 2,000 people.
Investigation Reveals Full Scale of Killings
Now, a new Reuters investigation has exposed the full scale of the killings committed by Abu Lulu and other commanders, in what the UN has condemned as war crimes. Hundreds of dead bodies lie on the ground in the harrowing videos compiled by the news agency, as commanders including Abu Lulu jeer and celebrate, shouting 'Allahu Akbar.'
Footage captures the chilling moment the 'Butcher' corners a bleeding man on the ground. Refusing any pleas for leniency, he says: 'I will not have mercy on you. We don't want your information... we are here to kill.' The screen obscures the graphic scene right as the sound of multiple gunshots echoes through the audio. In others, Abu Lulu and his men indiscriminately shoot dozens of bullets into heaps of wounded men and women. They film the aftermath, taunting 'there they are, your family, your people, your slaves.'
One commander films a video in selfie mode, smiling as dead bodies scatter his surroundings. 'Here is the holocaust the [enemy] were talking about,' he jeers, 'This is a holocaust. Get out if you can.' 'We spent the morning burning them,' he continues, 'we finished them. They were burnt, more like a barbeque.'
Survivors Recount Horrors
Reuters spoke with six survivors in refugee camps in Chad who said they witnessed Abu Lulu killing civilians in al-Fashir before they fled in October 2025. Manazil Mousa, 25, recognized Abu Lulu from videos shown to her by a Reuters reporter and said she met him on the road out of al-Fashir as she and her family were fleeing. There, she said, he took their phones and all of their belongings, beat them severely and shot and killed her brother, Mubarak.
'Abu Lulu is the one who abused us,' she said. 'He was the one who killed Mubarak. He is the one who killed our families and killed our husbands.' Madina Adam, 38, said Abu Lulu entered Al-Fashir University on October 27, where she was sheltering with other civilians, and started to kill women and children. She described one moment when Abu Lulu asked a pregnant woman how many months along she was, and when she responded 'seven months,' he shot her seven times in her stomach with his gun. The same scene was described by two witnesses in a UN report published in February.
Adam said Abu Lulu then asked a group of 10 children to sit on the ground and forced them to chant RSF slogans while he filmed. The children asked not to be killed, she said, but he shot all 10 of them.
Other Senior Commanders Implicated
The videos of Abu Lulu and his group are among nearly 300 videos posted online around the time of the October offensive and analysed by Reuters and the Sudan Witness project at the Centre for Information Resilience. Abu Lulu was the only commander Reuters identified in videos shooting unarmed people. But the Reuters-Sudan Witness investigation also found that three other senior RSF commanders were in the same area when the mass killings took place.
One video verified by Reuters shows Gedo Hamdan Abu Nashuk, the highest ranking RSF commander for the region of North Darfur, walking alongside Abu Lulu on the morning of October 27. Reuters geolocated videos from this area and found that Nashuk was recorded within 40 metres of two other videos that showed Abu Lulu executing unarmed men. By measuring shadows in the three videos, Reuters found that the videos were filmed within the same two-hour window.
Under international law, these leaders may be held criminally liable for crimes committed by their fighters during the conflict, said Jehanne Henry, a human rights lawyer and Sudan director at The Reckoning Project, a US non-profit that documents war crimes.
Abu Lulu's Arrest and Release
After international backlash, the RSF imprisoned Abu Lulu in late October 2025, a few days after its bloody takeover of al-Fashir. RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, publicly acknowledged violations by his fighters in al-Fashir and said an accountability committee would be set up to investigate any abuses. On October 30, the RSF released a video of Abu Lulu being driven to Shala prison, in southwestern al-Fashir. In the video, a handcuffed Abu Lulu is escorted from a vehicle flanked by armed men and placed behind bars. An unidentified RSF spokesperson standing in front of the prison says Abu Lulu 'will be presented to a just trial in accordance with the law.'
However, the commander has since been released from prison and returned to active duty on the battlefield, nine sources told Reuters. Two of the sources – a Sudanese intelligence official and a commander with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces – said they personally saw RSF Brigadier General al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, known as Abu Lulu, on the battlefield in Kordofan in March. RSF officers had pleaded for Abu Lulu to be returned to the field to boost the morale of forces engulfed in heavy fighting there, a Chadian military officer told Reuters.
In total, 13 sources said they knew of Abu Lulu's release. They include three RSF commanders, an RSF officer, a relative of Abu Lulu, a Chadian military officer close to RSF command and seven other sources with contacts in RSF leadership or access to intelligence on RSF field operations. Abu Lulu is from the same clan as Hemedti, the RSF leader. Hemedti's brother, Abdelrahim Dagalo, the deputy commander of the RSF, personally ordered Abu Lulu's release from prison, according to three sources.
An RSF commander said leadership ordered other officers to keep quiet about Abu Lulu's return to combat. A different RSF commander and the relative said Abu Lulu was released on the condition that he not film or be filmed on the battlefield. 'He has been free for about three or four months and is on the battlefield with his troops,' said one RSF commander, who declined to be named. Abu Lulu's relative said the RSF needed the commander's services because its forces are struggling. After cementing control of al-Fashir, the RSF shifted its offensive eastward into the Kordofan region, between its territory and army-held areas. It has faced intense fighting there. 'He is very popular with the troops and that's good for their morale,' the relative said.
RSF Denies Release
In several videos verified by Reuters and Sudan Witness, other RSF fighters praise Abu Lulu and his killings. In one, filmed and posted online on November 1, 2025, by Salah Abdeen Mohamed Azala, an RSF fighter, Azala says many fighters are ready to take Abu Lulu's place. 'If Abu Lulu disappeared, or you arrested him or tried him, we are all 1,000 Abu Lulus,' he says, speaking to the camera. 'I too am Abu Lulu.'
The RSF-led coalition government issued a statement on Monday denying the group had released Abu Lulu. A special court will try him and others accused of violations during the al-Fashir offensive, according to the statement from Ahmed Tugud Lisan, spokesman for the RSF-led Tasis government. 'The talk about Abu Lulu being released is untrue, malicious, and completely false,' the statement said. 'Abu Lulu and the others accused of violations during the liberation of al-Fashir have been in detention since their arrest and have never left prison.'
