More than 120 dead in paramilitary disasters in east-central Sudan, UN and doctors’ group say

CAIRO – Fighters from the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have mutinied in east-central Sudan in a multi-day attack that killed more than 120 people in one city, a doctors group and the United Nations said.

It was the group’s latest attack on the Sudanese army, after a series of setbacks that saw it lose ground to the army in the area. The war, which has been going on for more than a year and a half, has devastated the African country, displacing millions of its population and bringing it to the brink of outright famine.

RSF fighters went on the rampage in towns and cities on the eastern and northern sides of Gezira province between October 20 and 25, shooting at civilians and sexually assaulting women and girls, the United Nations said in a statement on Saturday, adding that it plundered private and public property, including open markets.

The attack displaced more than 4,000 people in the town of Tambiuk and other villages in eastern Gezira, according to the International Organization for Migration’s Tracking Matrix.

“The killings and abhorrent human rights violations in Gezira Province reinforce the unacceptable human toll this conflict has taken on the people of Sudan,” IOM Director General Amy Pope told The Associated Press ahead of her trip to the country next week.

Calling for joint international efforts to end the conflict, she said: “There is no time to lose. Millions of lives are at stake.”

“These are heinous crimes,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said in a statement on Saturday. “Women, children and the most vulnerable are hardest hit by a conflict that has already cost far too many lives.”

She said the attacks resembled the horrors committed during the genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s, including rape, sexual violence and mass killings.

The RSF emerged from Arab militias, commonly known as Janjaweed, mobilized by former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir against populations in Darfur who identify as Central or East African. At the time, the Janjaweed were accused of mass murders, rapes and other atrocities, and Darfur became synonymous with genocide. Janjaweed groups still help the RSF.

The Sudanese Doctors’ Union said in a statement that at least 124 people were killed and 200 others injured in the town of Sariha, adding that the group arrested at least 150 others. It called on the UN Security Council to pressure the RSF to open “safe corridors” so aid groups can reach people in affected villages.

“There is no way to help or evacuate the injured for treatment,” the statement said.

Images circulating online, some shared by RSF fighters themselves, showed members of the paramilitary group abusing detainees. One video showed a man wearing a military uniform grabbing an old man by the chin and dragging him around as other armed men sang in the background.

The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Coordination of Civilian Democratic Forces, an alliance of pro-democracy parties and groups, also accused the RSF of storming villages, opening fire on civilians and rounding up and assaulting “a large number of residents.”

In a statement, the alliance held the RSF “responsible for these massive violations” and called for its preparations to be held accountable.

The attack on Gezira came as the army had successfully taken back areas held by the RSF.

In September, the army launched a large-scale operation in and around the capital Khartoum, reclaiming large swathes of territory from the RSF. It also took control of Jebel Moya, a strategic mountain area in Gezira province, as well as areas in Gezira and nearby Sinnar province earlier this month, driving out RSF forces.

In October, a top RSF commander, Abu Aqlah Keikel, the de facto ruler of Gezira, defected and surrendered to the army.

That prompted RSF fighters to attack villages and towns in Gezira that were considered loyal to Keikel, according to local reports.

The war in Sudan began in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the military and the RSF erupted into open fighting in Khartoum before spreading across the country.

The war was characterized by atrocities such as mass rape and ethnically motivated killings. The UN and international rights groups say these acts amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, which has suffered a bitter attack from the RSF.

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a group that has been tracking the conflict since it began, the conflict has killed more than 24,000 people so far.