what we know about the attack on a village which left more than a hundred dead

This new violence, attributed to the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces, illustrates the bloody conflict which has been tearing apart the country threatened by famine for more than a year.

Yet another illustration of the impact of the conflict between the two rival generals on the Sudanese population. Pro-democracy activists in Sudan reported Thursday, June 6, around a hundred deaths in the village of Wad al-Noura, located in the center of the country.

The Rapid Support Forces (FSR), paramilitaries at war against the Sudanese army since April 2023, attacked the village on Wednesday “twice” with heavy artillery, said the Madani resistance committee, a mutual aid network between residents, in a press release Wednesday. In the process, the rebels declared on the social network “outside” of the inhabited area. Here is what we know about this bloody attack.

An extremely heavy human toll

Reporting “more than 104 dead” as well as “hundreds injured”Madani’s resistance committee assured Thursday that it had established this assessment on the basis of a “preliminary communication with the inhabitants of the village” located in the State of Al-Jazeera. “I am horrified by reports that at least 35 children were killed and more than 20 others injured in the attack on the village”reacted for her part the director general of Unicef, Catherine Russell, in a press release. On his Facebook account, Mini Arko Minawi, the governor of Darfur province, reported more than 150 victims, including “children, women and people with disabilities”.

Evoking a “mass grave”activists of Madani’s resistance committee posted photos on social media showing a row of white shrouds arranged on a field. They say that the paramilitaries “invaded the village”causing many residents to flee. “The images reaching us from Wad al-Noura are heartbreaking”lamented Clémentine Nkweta-Salami, the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country. “Human tragedy has become a feature of life in Sudan”she regretted on X.

Army chief vows to “reply hard”

On Thursday, the head of the army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, went to the bedside of the wounded, as shown in this video. Sudan’s transitional government condemned the attack and called on the international community to hold Sudanese security forces accountable, in a press release published on Facebook. The army commander-in-chief promised to “reply harshly” It front of “crimes” Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Across the country, fighting has continued daily for more than a year between the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the FSR paramilitaries, under the leadership of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo. Both sides are regularly accused of war crimes, including targeting civilians, indiscriminately bombing residential areas, engaging in looting or blocking vital humanitarian aid.

Paramilitaries accused of “war crimes”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemns” the attack carried out by a paramilitary group against a village in Sudan which allegedly “more than 100 dead”his spokesperson said in a statement, calling on the parties to the conflict to refrain from any attacks against civilians.

Emergency Lawyers, a group of Sudanese lawyers who document atrocities committed since the start of the war, saw in the attack on Wad al-Noura “a painful example of flagrant human rights violations”. The organization denounced a “war crime” on X.

The governor of Al-Jazeera state, Al-Tahir Ibrahim Al-Khair, told the official Sudan News Agency that the “brutal violations” committed by the Rapid Support Forces in and around Wad Al-Noura constituted a “complete war crime”reports the TRT Afrika information platform.

“Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are unacceptable”for her part reacted the executive director of Unicef, Catherine Russell. “Over the past year, thousands of children have been killed and injured”she recalled in a statement available on the website of the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).