Dozens killed by paramilitary RSF in Sudan's Gezira, say aid groups

UNICEF calls for more international attention to ‘the forgotten crisis’, now that approximately 25.6 million people are facing acute hunger.

Dozens of civilians have been killed and thousands displaced in Sudan’s Gezira state, aid groups said, after several days of attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

A union of doctors and a youth group said the RSF attacked several villages and towns in the east-central state of Gezira, looted and destroyed public and private properties, and left dozens dead, the Associated Press news agency reported on Saturday.

RSF attacks in al-Sireha, a village in Gezira state, lasted three days, killing 50 people on one day alone, according to aid groups that tracked the deaths and published the list, seen by Al Jazeera.

A network of activists from the area told news agency AFP that the death toll from Friday’s attack was at least 50, while the website Sudan News (sudanakhbar) reported that as many as 124 people have been killed and 200 injured so far.

Sudan plunged into conflict in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo erupted in a conflict that has so far displaced more than 10 million people. according to United Nations data, creating one of the worst global humanitarian crises.

Since September, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has been carrying out a major offensive to regain areas in and around the capital Khartoum from RSF control.

In al-Sireha alone, RSF fighters have killed at least 50 people and wounded 200, the Resistance Committees, a network of youth groups monitoring the war, told the AP late Friday.

At least 12 other people were killed in the village of Saqiaah, the group said.

It confirmed the number of casualties to AFP on Saturday, adding that since the attack on Friday morning, rescuers and villagers have been unable to evacuate the wounded “due to the bombing and sniping” of the RSF.

The Sudan Doctors Union said the RSF’s advances had turned areas in eastern Gezira into a “brutal war zone”.

‘Forgotten crisis’

Ted Chaiban, deputy head of UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, called for more international attention to “the forgotten crisis” in Sudan.

In an interview with AP on Friday, Chaiban said the war has created “one of the most acute crises in living memory,” forcing more than 14 million people to flee their homes, plunging Sudan into the world’s worst displacement crisis.

“We’ve never seen numbers like this in a generation,” he said.

About 25.6 million people – more than half of Sudan’s population – are expected to face acute hunger this year as a result of the conflict.

UNICEF and the UN refugee agency UNHCR are calling for unfettered access to people in need across the country.

The war was marked by atrocities such as mass rape and “ethnic cleansing,” which the UN says amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, which has suffered a bitter attack by the RSF.