Scores Killed in Sudan As RSF Attacks North Darfur

By Staff, Agencies

A Rapid Support Forces [RSF] paramilitary attack on the North Darfur town of Kutum in western Sudan on Sunday has killed at least 40 civilians and wounded many more, according to a local lawyers' association and eyewitnesses.

During the offensive, the RSF took control of the Sudanese army’s 22nd Brigade garrison, later releasing a video showing its fighters walking through the base, talking to captured army soldiers, and inspecting its offices.

On Sunday, the army denied that Kutum had been taken.

The RSF attacked the whole of the town, looting the market and most of the houses around Kassab camp, said the Darfur Bar Association, a group of lawyers that advocates for rights in the region and monitors abuses.

The association said at least 40 people were killed and that human rights activists were among the dead and the missing.

The lawyers' group added that many residents of Kutum had fled approximately 50kms northeast to Hashaba, a route taken by Sudanese fleeing attacks during the Darfur conflict between 2003 and 2005.

The Darfur Network for Human Rights activist group said it was "deeply concerned about the human rights violations against innocent citizens" in Kutum.

The war in Sudan began on 15 April, when tensions over plans to fold the RSF into the regular Sudanese military broke out into open conflict between the paramilitary and armed forces.

Since then, seven barely observed ceasefires have come and gone.

Fighting has previously been mostly confined to the Khartoum metropolitan area and to Darfur, the restive western region that has been repeatedly riven by conflict over the past 20 years.

However, authorities have now declared a state of emergency in Port Sudan following rumors that RSF fighters are present there, and eyewitnesses have reported clashes between the two sides in el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state in central Sudan.

The war has displaced over 1.4 million people, according to the UN.

On Friday, local media outlet Radio Dabanga reported that 440 people have died in fighting in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur.