Sudan’s paramilitaries killed 56 civilians over two days in attacks on a newly-retaken town on the road to El-Fasher, the last major city in Darfur still in army hands, activists said on Sunday.
The killings, which occurred on April 11 and 12, targeted residents in Um Kadadah, around 180 kilometres (112 miles) east of El-Fasher, “on an ethnic basis”, said the local resistance committee, part of a network of volunteers coordinating aid across Sudan since the war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began on April 15, 2023.
The RSF have stepped up attacks in the El-Fasher area since the army last month recaptured the capital Khartoum, around 1,000 kilometres to the east.
The committee’s report came a day after the United Nations said more than 100 people were feared dead in RSF attacks on El-Fasher and two nearby famine-hit camps for displaced people.
The attacks on Um Kadadah came one day after RSF fighters said they seized the town from army forces.
The local committee shared a list of those killed and said that the RSF committed “widespread violations” and citizens “were forcibly displaced” from the town.
The paramilitaries shut down all telecommunications there, the committee added.
Victims included the town’s hospital director, the committee said, adding that at least 14 people remain missing.
The United States has sanctioned both sides in the war, saying the RSF had “committed genocide” in Darfur, but also that the army had attacked civilians during the war.
The conflict has essentially divided Sudan in two, killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million and created what the International Rescue Committee described as “the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded”.
