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 doctors' union and a youth group said the RSF attacked several villages and towns in the central-eastern state of Gezira, looting and vandalizing public and private property, and leaving dozens dead, the news agency reported on Saturday. Associated Press news.
RSF attacks on al-Sireha, a village in Gezira state, continued for three days, with 50 people killed in just one day, according to aid groups that have been tracking the deaths and publishing the list, which had Al Jazeera access.
A network of activists in the area told the AFP news agency that the death toll from Friday's attack was at least 50, while the Sudan News (sudanakhbar) website reported that up to 124 people have been killed so far. and 200 have been injured.
Amgad Faried, a Sudanese politician and executive director of the Sudanese think tank Fikra for Studies and Development, said the attack is related to the recent defection of an RSF commander.
He recalled that Abuagla Keikal – a former army officer who became the top RSF commander in the southeastern state of El Gezira – switched sides in the war on October 20.
“Since then, the RSF has been launching a wave of attacks against the eastern areas of El Gezira and al-Butana, where Abuagla is originally located,” he said, speaking to Al Jazeera from Cairo.
“Abuagla himself has participated in the commission of many crimes against the people of El Gezira,” Faried added.
Sudan plunged into conflict in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions erupted between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, in a conflict that has so far displaced to more than 10 million people, according to United Nations data, and created one of the worst global humanitarian crises.
Since September, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have been carrying out a major offensive to recapture areas in and around the capital, Khartoum, from RSF control.
In al-Sireha alone, RSF fighters killed at least 50 people and wounded 200, the Resistance Committees, a network of youth groups monitoring the war, told the AP on Friday night.
In the village of Saqiaah, at least 12 other people were killed, the group said.
He confirmed the number of victims to AFP on Saturday, adding that since the attack on Friday morning, rescuers and locals have been unable to evacuate the wounded “due to shelling and sniping” by the RSF.
The Sudan Doctors Union said RSF advances had turned parts of eastern Gezira into “a brutal war zone”.
'Forgotten crisis'
Ted Chaiban, deputy director of UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency, called for more international attention to “the forgotten crisis” in Sudan.
In an interview with the AP on Friday, Chaiban said the war has created “one of the most acute crises in living memory” with more than 14 million people forced to flee their homes, plunging Sudan into the largest displacement crisis in the world. world.
“Never in a generation have we seen these kinds of numbers,” he said.
Around 25.6 million people – more than half of Sudan's population – are expected to face acute hunger this year due to the conflict.
UNICEF and UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, call for unimpeded access to people in need across the country.
The war has been marked by atrocities such as mass rape and “ethnic cleansing,” which the UN says amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly in the western Darfur region, which has been facing a bitter attack by the RSF.
