A senior UN official in Sudan says she is deeply disturbed by reports of “heinous crimes” in the central state of Gezira, including the mass killing of civilians by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Clementine Nkweta-Salami’s comments came after an activist group said at least 124 people had been killed by the RSF in attacks on villagers in the past week.
The RSF has denied targeting civilians and said its fighters are clashing with army-armed militias.
The eighteen-month conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than eleven million people.
Gezira state turned into a major battlefield last week after the RSF suffered a major blow when one of its commanders, Abu Aqla Kayka, defected to the army.
The army said he had taken “a large number of his troops” with him, in what it described as the first high-profile defection from his side.
In response, the RSF said its fighters would defend themselves and “take decisive action against anyone carrying weapons.”
Nkweta-Salam, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said preliminary reports suggested the RSF carried out a major attack across the state between October 20 and 25.
She added that it led to mass killings, the rape of women and girls, the widespread looting of markets and homes and the burning of farms.
Ms Nkweta-Salam said the “heinous crimes” were on a similar scale to last year in Sudan’s Darfur region, when the RSF was accused of “ethnic cleansing” of communities believed to be opposed to it.
Ms Nkweta-Salam said the death toll was still unclear, but preliminary reports suggested dozens of people had been killed in Gezira state.
In a statement on Saturday, the Wad Madani Resistance Committee, which campaigns for an end to conflict and democratic rule in Sudan, said the RSF carried out “extensive massacres in one village after another,” Reuters news agency reported.
The Sudanese doctors’ union called on the UN to urge the two sides in the conflict to agree to safe humanitarian corridors to villages facing “genocide” at the hands of the RSF.
The doctors’ union added that rescue operations had become impossible and that the army was “incapable” of protecting civilians.
The conflict in Sudan erupted in April 2023 after a feud between the commanders of the RSF and the army, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, respectively.
The two had jointly staged a coup in 2021 that derailed Sudan’s transition to democracy, but then became embroiled in a brutal power struggle.
The two leaders have refused to sign a peace deal despite efforts by the US and Saudi Arabia to broker an end to the conflict.
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