Pro-democracy activists in Sudan reported on Thursday around a hundred deaths in an attack carried out by a paramilitary group against a village, new violence illustrating the bloody conflict which has been tearing apart the country threatened by famine for more than a year.
The Rapid Support Forces (FSR), paramilitaries at war against the Sudanese army since April 2023, attacked the village of Wad al-Noura “twice” on Wednesday with heavy artillery, said the “resistance committee of Madani”.
Reporting “more than 104 deaths” as well as “hundreds of injured”, the local organization, a mutual aid network between residents, assured Thursday that it had established this report on the basis of “preliminary communication with the inhabitants of the village” located in al-Jazeera state, central Sudan.
Committee activists also posted images on social networks showing a row of white shrouds arranged on a plot of land. They claim that the paramilitaries “invaded the village”, causing many residents to flee.
The “resistance committee” also assured that the Sudanese army – at war with the RSF – had been called for help by the villagers of Wad al-Noura, but that it had not intervened.
In just over a year, the war between rival generals in Sudan has left tens of thousands dead, with some estimates going as high as “150,000” victims, according to the US envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello. .
Across the country, and even in the capital Khartoum, fighting continues daily between the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the FSR paramilitaries, under the leadership of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo.
“Egregious violations”
Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including targeting civilians, indiscriminately shelling residential areas and engaging in looting or blocking vital humanitarian aid.
Emergency Lawyers, a group of Sudanese lawyers who document atrocities committed since the start of the war, saw the Wad al-Noura attack as “a painful example of the flagrant human rights violations” committed in this conflict.
The organization denounced a “war crime” on its X account.
Accused of looting, but also of sexual and ethnic violence, the RSF have repeatedly besieged and attacked entire villages across the country.
In a statement released late Wednesday, the paramilitaries said they attacked three army camps in the Wad al-Noura region and clashed with their rivals “outside” the populated area.
If the army has not commented on these events, the Sovereign Transitional Council, an institution chaired by General Burhane, denounced a “horrible massacre against defenseless civilians”.
Acute malnutrition and starvation
On Thursday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that the number of internally displaced people in the country could “exceed 10 million” in the coming days.
PHOTO -, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Vegetable vendors wait for clients at a market in Gedaref city in eastern Sudan on June 6, 2024. The war in Sudan — which experts have warned could last for years — has pushed 18 million Sudanese into acute food insecurity, five million of whom are at risk of famine. (Photo by AFP)
Since the start of the conflict, more than seven million people have fled their homes to seek refuge elsewhere in Sudan – which already had 2.8 million people displaced over decades of wars that have ravaged the country.
“The world’s worst internal displacement crisis continues to worsen, with famine on the horizon and disease adding to the devastation caused by the conflict,” IOM said in its statement.
Across the country, 70% of displaced people are “now trying to survive in areas threatened by famine,” warns the UN agency.
Some 18 million people suffer from hunger and 3.6 million children from acute malnutrition, according to UN agencies, which deplore “systematic obstructions” and “deliberate refusals” by belligerents hindering aid deliveries. humanitarians.
In the current context, the Dutch think tank Clingendael Institute estimates that by the end of September 2.5 million people could die if the humanitarian crisis continues.
Or “around 15% of the population of Darfur and Kordofan”, vast regions of the West and South torn apart by particularly violent fighting, according to the same source.