The Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) is dedicated to protecting the health and security of populations affected by crises throughout the world. HRL generates evidence for operational response and accountability in humanitarian crises. HRL analyzes and preserves open source and remote sensing data, including satellite imagery and information shared via social media, consistent with international legal standards for use in ongoing and future accountability mechanisms. This includes maintaining rigorous chain-of-custody procedures for preservation and accountability mechanisms. Real-time analyses of these data provide support to partners delivering healthcare and responding to population needs in conflict settings.
A new food security study by HRL corroborates findings that RSF razed at least 41 farming communities in the first months of their siege on El Fasher, North Darfur in 2024. Months later, 68% of these communities were depopulated and farmland decreased by 82%. This study corroborates UN Fact-Finding Mission report that RSF's actions in El Fasher were the "hallmarks of genocide".
A report released Thursday by the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan—concluding that paramilitary Rapid Support Forces committed genocide against non-Arab Indigenous ethnic groups during the siege of El-Fasher—relies heavily on satellite imagery analysis conducted by the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health.
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