KHARTOUM (AFP): Sudanese paramilitaries killed more than 200 people in a three-day assault south of Khartoum, a monitoring group said Tuesday, as the government said the real toll was more than double.
The foreign ministry, loyal to the army in its war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, said “433 people, including infant children” had been killed.
The RSF attack on the White Nile state villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat — some 90 kilometres (55 miles) south of the capital — sent thousands fleeing their homes, eyewitnesses told AFP.
Since Saturday, RSF fighters have engaged in “executions, kidnappings, enforced disappearances and property looting” targeting unarmed civilians, according to the Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses.
The attack — which the lawyers called “genocide” — has left hundreds wounded or missing, the group said, with some residents shot at and drowned while trying to flee across the Nile River.
Since the war broke out in April 2023, both the army and the paramilitaries have been accused of war crimes.
The RSF, which the United States determined last month had committed genocide, have been accused of carrying out summary executions, ethnic cleansing and systematic sexual violence.
The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced more than 12 million and created what the International Rescue Committee has called the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded”.
‘Bodies lying on the streets’
Control over White Nile state, which extends from just south of Khartoum to the South Sudanese border, is currently divided by the warring parties.
The army controls the south, including state capital Rabak, as well as two major cities and a key military base.
The RSF holds the northern parts of the state bordering Khartoum, including the villages where the latest attacks took place.
A medical source told AFP Monday they were not able to confirm a toll.
“Some bodies are still lying in the street, and some were killed in their homes and no one can reach them,” they said, requesting anonymity for their safety.
Fighting has intensified across Sudan in recent weeks as the army advances in an effort to reclaim full control of the capital from paramilitaries.
The United Nations children’s agency said on Sunday children in Khartoum were trapped in “a living nightmare” between indiscriminate shooting, looting and forced displacement.
UNICEF said it had also received alarming accounts of families being separated, with children reported missing, abducted and subjected to sexual violence.
Arms embargo
The UN human rights office said Tuesday “entrenched impunity” had fuelled gross human rights violations across Sudan.
“Continued and deliberate attacks” on civilians including “summary executions, sexual violence and other violations and abuses underscore the utter failure” by both sides to respect international humanitarian law, it said in a statement.
The UN also called for the expansion of the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction and an arms embargo — in place since 2004 — to cover all of Sudan instead of just the Darfur region.
The vast western region, home to around a quarter of Sudan’s population, has seen escalating violence in recent weeks as the RSF seeks to consolidate its hold there.
The paramilitary group has intensified attacks on North Darfur state capital El-Fasher, the only major town in Darfur it does not control.
The UN says thousands of families have fled from RSF attacks on villages surrounding El-Fasher.
Last Tuesday, it stormed the nearby Zamzam displacement camp, which has suffered a months-long famine because of an RSF siege.
The famine has since taken hold in five areas of the country, according to a UN-backed assessment, and is expected to spread to five more including El-Fasher itself by May.
Across Sudan, eight million people are on the brink of starvation, while nearly 25 million — around half of the population — suffer dire food insecurity.
