Death toll in Al Jazirah reaches 7,000 as RSF violence continues

December 11, 2024 (WAD MADANI) – The death toll from Rapid Support Forces (RSF) violence in Sudan’s Al Jazirah state has reached 7,000, a local monitoring group reported on Wednesday.

The RSF has been carrying out retaliatory attacks on villages in eastern and southern Al Jazirah since late October, following the defection of a key commander, Abu Aqla Kakil, to the Sudanese army.

“The number of dead has reached 7,000 across Al Jazirah state since the RSF invasion in December 2023,” Al Mir Mahmoud, secretary general of the Al Jazirah Conference, told Sudan Tribune.

The Al Jazirah Conference, a civil society organization formed after the RSF seized control of the state, tracks human rights abuses against civilians.

Mahmoud said that 1,700 people have been killed in villages and towns in eastern Al Jazirah. Another 2,000 people have suffered chronic disabilities due to injuries, he added.

According to the Al Jazirah Conference, around 100,000 people have fled from eastern Al Jazirah to the neighboring River Nile state, sheltering in 40 camps.

“More than 1.5 million people have fled villages in eastern Al Jazirah,” Mahmoud said, “including 850,000 original residents of those areas and the rest displaced from other parts of Al Jazirah and Khartoum.”

The RSF has forcibly displaced tens of thousands of civilians in Al Jazirah to eastern and northern states, prompting international condemnation of its abuses.