Ten days of “brutal” attacks by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have left at least 89 people dead in the western region of Darfur, the United Nations High commissioner for human rights says.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival RSF. The fighting has killed tens of thousands.
North Darfur’s besieged capital, el-Fasher, has been under siege by the RSF since May last year.
The recent RSF attacks occurred between August 11 and August 20 in el-Fasher and the nearby Abu Shouk displacement camp, Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for commissioner Volker Turk, said in a Geneva press briefing on Friday.
“Brutal attacks by the RSF … resulted in the killing of at least 89 civilians over a 10-day period up to August 20,” the UN human rights office said.
“We fear the actual number of civilians killed is likely higher,” Laurence added. He said such attacks were unacceptable and had to cease immediately.
The dead include at least 57 people who were killed in attacks on August 11 and another 32 killed between August 16-20, Laurence said.
“We are particularly horrified that among the most recent spate of civilian killings, 16 appear to have been cases of summary executions,” he added.
Among the dead were civilians from the African Zaghawa tribe and one from the African Berti tribe.
“This pattern of attacks on civilians and wilful killings, which are serious violations of international humanitarian law, deepens our concerns about ethnically motivated violence,” Laurence said.
War marked by gross atrocities
El-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, is the military’s last stronghold in the sprawling region of Darfur. The RSF has bombed the city for more than a year, and last month, it imposed a total blockade on its hundreds of thousands of people.
The RSF has also repeatedly attacked Abu Shouk and another displacement camp, Zamzam, which was once Sudan’s largest, with more than 500,000 people. The two camps are located outside el-Fasher and were largely emptied after a major RSF attack in April. They have been hit by famine.
The current war has killed more than 40,000 people, forced more than 14 million to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine swept parts of the country.
It has also been marked by gross atrocities, including ethnically motivated killing and rape, according to the United Nations and rights groups. The International Criminal Court has said it was also investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Cholera outbreak amidst war
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that regions like el-Fasher have also been experiencing “a severe humanitarian and public health crisis”, driven by the active conflict and mass displacement.
WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told journalists that all 18 states in Sudan were reporting cholera, with 48,768 cases and 1,094 deaths reported this year up to August 11.
He said civilians have been facing severe food shortages, rising malnutrition deaths, and severely limited access to healthcare.
Cholera is an acute intestinal infection that spreads through food and water contaminated with bacteria, often from faeces. It can kill within hours when not attended to, though it can be treated with simple oral rehydration, and antibiotics for more severe cases.
