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Weapons bearing the logo of a Canadian arms manufacturer have been identified in the hands of a paramilitary group in Sudan responsible for massacres of civilians, analysis by CBC’s visual investigations unit has found.

The civil war that erupted on April 15, 2023, has wreaked havoc on civilian infrastructure, decimated health-care facilities in Sudan and resulted in the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. An estimated 150,000 people have died in the conflict and more than 12 million civilians are internally displaced.

The city of El Fasher — considered the last stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Darfur — has become the epicentre of Sudan’s spiralling war. For more than 500 days, the city had been under siege, encircled entirely by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which experts have accused of ethnic cleansing.

On Oct. 26, the city finally fell to the RSF. Reports of civilian massacres followed.

Multiple photos posted online and verified by CBC show rifles with the logo of Sterling Cross Defense Systems, an Abbotsford, B.C.-based company that produces firearms and ammunition, in the hands of RSF fighters.

Images shared on social media by RSF fighters — noted over the years by research groups such as War Noir and Streaking Delilah , and verified by CBC — depict Sterling Cross’s XLCR sniper rifles in the hands of fighters throughout Sudan since at least 2023.

The CBC visual investigat