CAIRO: Activists claim that Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed at least 124 people on Friday in a village in El Gezira State. This was one of the deadliest incidents in an 18-month war and the largest of a series of attacks in the state.
Pro-democracy activists claimed that the RSF had carried out retaliatory attacks in the farming state where Abuagla Keikal was from, killing and detaining civilians and displacing thousands, following the high-ranking RSF officer’s surrender to the army on Sunday.
Residents in Gezira claim that the RSF carried out a months-long rampage that resulted in the looting of homes, the deaths of dozens of civilians, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands.
The Wad Madani Resistance Committee, a pro-democracy group, said on Saturday that the RSF raid in Al-Sireha village, in the north of the state, resulted in at least 124 deaths and 100 injuries.
Women’s groups report rapes in the conflict zone. In a statement, the RSF said that the army armed civilians in Gezira and used forces under Keikal’s command to start its attacks. Both the RSF and the army did not respond to inquiries for clarification.
In a conflict with the army, the RSF has taken control of large portions of Sudan, according to the United Nations, resulting in one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Over 11 million people have been forced from their homes as a result of the war, and parts of the country have experienced extreme hunger or famine as a result. Additionally, foreign powers have joined the conflict, providing material support to both sides.
When tensions between the RSF and the army, who had previously shared power, escalated into open conflict in April 2023, Sudan was supposed to be moving toward civilian rule following a coup in 2021.
The committee stated, “The RSF militia are raiding east, west, and central Gezira, committing extensive massacres in one village after another.” Pictures via online entertainment shared by the board of trustees and others suspected to show many bodies wrapped for entombment and mass graves being dug.
“It is impossible to treat the injured or even evacuate them for treatment because the Rapid Support Forces are threatening genocide against the people of Gezira. The Sudanese Doctors Union demanded safe passages and stated, “Those who have left on foot have died or are facing death.”
Social media users saw a video that purported to show an RSF soldier who claimed to be in Sireha. The video showed soldiers holding men of all ages at gunpoint, calling them racial names, and making them yell like goats. The resistance committee also shared a video in which an RSF soldier was seen lifting an elderly man to his feet with his beard.
In a statement, the government body Sudan’s Combating Violence Against Women Unit stated that it had received reports of RSF soldiers raping women in Gezira villages as a means of humiliating the men and driving people out of the area.
The army’s renewed push to reclaim territory across the country coincided with Keikal’s departure. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, a general in the Sudanese army, wrote on X that the Sudanese people’s determination to resist the RSF grew stronger as more civilian lives were lost.
However, there was a lot of criticism for his remarks, which implied that the army had not protected civilians in Gezira or elsewhere in the country.
The RSF is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing, particularly in West Darfur, by the United States and other nations. After conducting extensive airstrike campaigns that frequently resulted in high civilian casualties but did little to repress the RSF, the army is also accused of war crimes.
We are keeping an eye on the most recent, shocking RSF attacks on Gezira civilians. On X, US Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello said, “The killings and sexual violence are reprehensible.” He also said that the RSF and army were not protecting civilians.
Since April 2023, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been at war with the regular army in Sudan. However, since their state commander defected to the army, the RSF have increased their violence against civilians in al-Jazira, south of Khartoum.
One of the hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid in Sudan, the resistance committee in Hasaheisa, stated in a statement that “the villages of al-Sariha and Azraq have been under attack” since Friday morning. After the governor of Sudan’s Darfur region, Minni Minnawi, had accused the paramilitaries of doing so, Chad, a neighbor, denied aiding in their arming on Thursday.
Abderaman Koulamallah, the Chadian foreign minister, stated, “Chad has no interest in amplifying the war in Sudan,” noting that Chad was “one of the rare countries upon which this war has had major repercussions.”
