Sudan’s RSF launches violent raids on villages
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces have been accused of launching attacks against civilians in villages, according to the Arab News via Reuters.
Salwa Abdallah, who was recuperating from a caesarean section, was tending to her one-month year-old baby when RSF soldiers broke into her home in El Gezira last month.
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Accusing her of loyalty to the army, she told Reuters that they said to her “you killed us, so today we’ll kill you and rape your girls.”
Sheltering under a makeshift sheet in New Halfa, where she arrived after walking for days on foot with her elderly mother and children, she said that they were chased out of their village with whips and alter shot at by fighters on motorcycles. This was also mentioned by two other victims of the attacks – Reuters spoke to 13 victims, which activists say affected that least 65 villages.
The UN says some 135,000 people have been displaced, largely to Kassala, Gedaref, and River Nile states, which are already housing many of the over 11 million people internally displaced by the war.
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“I am shocked and deeply appalled that human rights violations of the kind witnessed in Darfur last year… are being repeated in El Gezira State. These are atrocious crimes,” said Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s top official in Sudan. This was in reference to attacks last year that prompted accusations of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, as reported by AP at the time.
Reuters, AP
