At least 100 people were killed, and dozens were injured after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked a village in Gezira province in Sudan on Wednesday, officials said.
Women, children, and the elderly were among the victims in the RSF attacks on Wad al-Noura village in Gezira, Mini Arko Minawi, the governor of Darfur province, said on X, formerly Twitter.
Catherina Russell, UNICEF Executive Director, said in a statement that at least 35 children were killed and 20 others were injured during the attacks.
A grassroots group set up to protect residents in Wad Madani, the capital city of Gezira, said late Wednesday on social media that the paramilitary force, which has been fighting the Sudanese army for over a year, used heavy artillery to besiege and attack the village.
The Madani Resistance Committee, which has been threatened and attacked by the RSF in the past, accused the paramilitaries of looting Wad al-Noura in the midst of the attacks which it said started Wednesday morning.
The RSF claimed in December that it had seized control of Wad Madani, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and a haven for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting.
The resistance committee said the RSF invaded the village, displacing residents, including women and children, to other parts of the district of al-Manaqil.
The Sudanese transitional government in a statement on its Telegram channel condemned the attacks and called for the international community to hold the RSF accountable.
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“These are criminal acts that reflect the systematic behavior of these (RSF) militias in targeting civilians, plundering their property, and forcibly displacing them from their areas,” said the media office for the Transitional Sovereignty Council, which was set up after the ouster of longtime president Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
The RSF alleged on X late Wednesday that the Sudanese military planned to attack its troops in Jabal al-Awliya, in the west of al-Manaqil district, by mobilizing Sudanese armed forces in three bases. The Associated Press couldn’t verify this allegation.
The paramilitary group said it attacked three camps west, north and south of Wad-al Noura, clashing with the Sudanese army.
“Our forces will not stand idly by in the face of any movements or gatherings by the enemy and will work to pursue and defeat the enemy,” said the RSF in its statement.
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Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, said Thursday on X that she was “shocked” by reports of the violent attacks.
“Human tragedy has become a hallmark of life in Sudan. We cannot allow impunity to become another one,” she said.
In a statement, Nkweta-Salami said that heavy gunfire and explosive weapons were used in populated areas, citing reports she deems credible.
She called for accountability and an investigation into the attacks.
Similarly, the UNICEF Executive Director, described the scenes on the ground as “devastating” and called for an end to the violence in Sudan, asserting that children in the country “need a cease-fire now.”
“This is yet another grim reminder of how the children of Sudan are paying the price for the brutal violence,” Russell said in the statement. “Over the past year, thousands of children have been killed and injured. Children have been recruited, abducted and subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence. Over five million children have been forced from their homes.”
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The war between the RSF and the Sudanese army has wrecked the country as clashes spread across multiple cities and pushed its population to the brink of famine. More than 14,000 people have been killed and thousands have been wounded. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced.