New mass ethnic killings in Sudan’s Darfur region, says HRW
November 26, 2023 (JUBA) – Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied militias killed hundreds of civilians in West Darfur in early November 2023, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.
The forces, it noted, also looted, assaulted, and unlawfully detained scores of members of the predominantly Massalit community in Ardamata, a suburb of West Darfur’s El Geneina.
“The Rapid Support Forces’ latest episode of ethnically targeted killings in West Darfur, has the hallmarks of an organized campaign of atrocities against Massalit civilians,” said Mohamed Osman, the Sudan researcher at the rights group.
He added, “The UN Security Council needs to stop ignoring the desperate need to protect Darfur civilians.”
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), an estimated 800 people were killed during the early November attacks in Ardamata. Local rights monitors interviewed survivors arriving in Chad and estimated the death toll of mainly civilians at between 1,300 and 2,000, including dozens killed on the road to Chad.
At least 8,000 people have fled into Chad, joining around 450,000, mostly women and children, displaced by attacks in West Darfur notably between April and June, figures from the UN show.
HRW said it interviewed 20 Massalit people who fled Ardamata to eastern Chad between November 1-10, including 3 Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) soldiers, who described a spree of killings, shelling, unlawful detentions, sexual violence, ill-treatment, and looting.
“All interviewees are identified by pseudonyms for their protection,” the group said, adding that it also analyzed eight videos and images posted on social media that show the RSF detaining over 200 men and boys in Ardamata.
“One video shows the fighters beating a group of men,” HRW said, adding a letter it shared with the RSF regarding its findings and questions, received no response before the date of publishing.
Conflict broke out on April 15 in Sudan between the country’s two military forces, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF. Between April and June, the RSF and allied militia reportedly led waves of assaults against majority-Massalit neighborhoods of El Geneina, as well as other towns and villages in the region, targeting civilians on a large scale.
Survivors and local monitors said that on November 1, fighting broke out again between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces. During the two days of heavy fighting that followed, both parties shelled the suburb, in some cases affecting civilians.
Survivors said that the Rapid Support Forces and allied forces shot at civilians as they fled and executed people in their homes, shelters, and in the streets. Survivors said attackers insulted the Massalit, and in some instances said they wanted to “kill Massalit.”
The assailants killed primarily Massalit men, but two people interviewed said that people from non-Arab groups, notably ethnic Tama and Eringa, were also killed and injured.
Meanwhile the rights group said the United Nations Security Council should urgently consider ways to strengthen the UN’s presence in Sudan that could deter further atrocities and better protect civilians in Darfur.
It further urged Security Council to support monitoring of human rights abuses there and expand the existing arms embargo to cover the entire country and all parties to the ongoing armed conflict.
“African members of the Security Council, the United Arab Emirates, and other governments on the council should support these and other measures to ensure the UN’s most powerful body is able to fulfill its responsibility to protect civilians in West Darfur and the rest of Sudan,” it stressed.
(ST)