Dozens killed by RSF paramilitary in Gezira, Sudan, aid groups say | Sudan War News

After several days of attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), dozens of civilians were killed and thousands displaced in the Sudanese state of Gezira, aid organizations said.

A union of doctors and a youth group said the RSF attacked several villages and towns in the east-central state of Gezira, looting and destroying public and private property and leaving dozens dead, the Associated Press news agency reported Saturday.

The RSF attacks in al-Sireha, a village in Gezira state, continued for three days, killing 50 people in one day alone, according to aid groups that have tracked the deaths and published the list seen by Al Jazeera.

A network of activists in the region told AFP that the death toll from Friday's attack was at least 50, while the Sudan News (Sudanakhbar) website reported that up to 124 people had been killed and 200 injured so far.

Amgad Faried, a Sudanese politician and executive director of the Sudanese studies and development think tank Fikra, said the attack was linked to the recent defection of an RSF commander.

He recalled that Abuagla Keikal – a former army officer who became commander-in-chief of the RSF in the southeastern state of El Gezira – changed his side in the war on October 20.

“Since then, the RSF has launched a wave of attacks against the areas of East El-Gezira and al-Butana, where Abuagla is originally located,” he told Al Jazeera from Cairo.

“Abuagla himself was involved in the commission of many crimes against the people of El Gezira,” Faried added.

Sudan descended into conflict in April 2023 when long-simmering tensions between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo erupted in a conflict that has so far displaced more than 10 million people, according to the report United Nations and caused one of the worst global humanitarian crises.

Since September, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have been carrying out a major offensive to retake areas in and around the capital Khartoum from RSF control.

In al-Sireha alone, RSF fighters killed at least 50 people and wounded 200, the Resistance Committees, a network of youth groups tracking the war, told the AP late Friday.

At least twelve more people were killed in the village of Saqiaah, the group said.

She confirmed the number of casualties to AFP on Saturday, adding that rescue workers and villagers had been unable to evacuate the wounded since Friday morning's attack “due to the RSF's bombing and sniping.”

The Sudan Doctors Union said the RSF's advances had turned areas in East Gezira into “a brutal war zone.”

“Forgotten Crisis”

Ted Chaiban, deputy head of UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency, called for more international attention on “the forgotten crisis” in Sudan.

In an interview with AP on Friday, Chaiban said the war had sparked “one of the worst crises in living memory,” with more than 14 million people forced from their homes, plunging Sudan into the world's largest displacement crisis.

“We haven’t seen numbers like this in a generation,” he said.

Around 25.6 million people – more than half of Sudan's population – are expected to suffer acute hunger this year due to the conflict.

UNICEF and the UN refugee agency UNHCR are calling for unhindered access to people in need across the country.

The war was marked by atrocities such as mass rape and “ethnic cleansing,” which the United Nations said constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly in the western Darfur region, which was under a fierce RSF attack.