Fighters from the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ran riot in east-central Sudan in a multi-day attack that killed more than 120 people in one town, a doctors group and the United Nations said.
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It was the group’s latest attack against the Sudanese military after suffering a series of setbacks, losing ground to the military in the area. The war, which has been going on for more than a year and a half, has wrecked the African country, displacing millions of its population and pushing it to the brink of a full-blown famine.
RSF fighters went on a rampage in villages and towns on the eastern and northern sides of the province of Gezira between October 20 and 25, shooting at civilians and sexually attacking women and girls, the UN said in a statement on Saturday, adding that they looted private and public properties, including open markets.
“These are atrocious crimes,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, said in a statement on Saturday. “Women, children, and the most vulnerable are bearing the brunt of a conflict that has already taken far too many lives.”
She said the attacks resembled the horrors committed during the Darfur genocide in the early 2000s, including rape, sexual violence, and mass killings.
The Sudanese Doctors’ Union said in a statement that at least 124 people were killed and 200 others were wounded in the town of Sariha, adding that the group rounded up at least 150 others. It called on the UN Security Council to pressure the RSF to open “safe corridors” to enable aid groups to reach people in impacted villages.