Activists say 50 people have been killed in a paramilitary attack in Sudan

Gedaref (Sudan) (AFP) – At least 50 people have been killed in a single attack by Sudanese paramilitaries who have besieged and raided villages in Al-Jazira state, activists say.

Published on: 26/10/2024 – 1:00 PMAltered: 26/10/2024 – 12:59

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The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been at war with Sudan’s regular army since April 2023, but have intensified their violence against civilians in Al-Jazira, south of the capital Khartoum, in recent days after their commander in the state went to the army had defected. .

“The villages of al-Sariha and Azraq have been under attack since Friday morning,” the Resistance Committee in Hasaheisa, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid in Sudan, said in a statement to AFP late on Friday.

In al-Sariha alone, the attack killed 50 people and injured more than 200, the resistance committee added, reporting a total “inability to evacuate the wounded from the village due to the shelling and sniping” of the RSF.

In the event of a near-total communications failure, the toll is impossible to verify and often difficult to collect.

The resistance committee said the nearby village of Azraq was “completely under siege and suffering the same violations as al-Sariha”, although it was not possible to give a death toll.

On Friday, Sudan’s doctors’ union called on the United Nations to push for safe humanitarian corridors to villages “facing genocide by the Rapid Support militia.”

The doctors’ union added that rescue operations had become impossible and that “the army is unable to protect civilians.”

According to medical sources in several villages, almost all health facilities that can handle emergencies have been forcibly closed.

The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, with an estimated 150,000 dead.

It has also led to what the UN calls the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than seven million displaced.

In June, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the UN, said Sudan is the world’s “largest humanitarian crisis.”

In July, a famine was declared in the Zamzam camp for displaced persons near the town of El-Fasher, in Sudan’s western Darfur region, bordering Chad.

Regional impact

Last Sunday, the military announced that the RSF’s al-Jazira commander, Abu Aqla Kaykal, had abandoned the paramilitaries and brought with him “a large number of his forces,” in what the military said was the first high-profile defection to his silk was.

Activists reported that at least 20 people were killed in subsequent paramilitary attacks in eastern Al-Jazira. They also said that a Sudanese army airstrike on a mosque in the capital Wad Madani killed 31 people.

On Thursday, neighboring Chad denied helping to arm the paramilitaries after the governor of Sudan’s Darfur region, Minni Minnawi, accused them of doing so.

“Chad has no interest in reinforcing the war in Sudan,” Chadian Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah said, noting that Chad was “one of the rare countries on which this war has had a major impact.”

Sudanese authorities have previously accused Chad of facilitating the supply of weapons from the United Arab Emirates to Sudan, which both Chad and the UAE have denied.

The International Monetary Fund’s Africa director, Catherine Pattillo, told AFP this week that the war in Sudan was likely to cause heavy economic damage to its already struggling neighbors.

“And then to be confronted with the refugees, the security issues and the trade issues, it’s very challenging for their growth,” she said.