News update
  • Dhaka concerned at dwindling funds for Rohingyas     |     
  • Rohingya crisis in uncertainty; WASH sector faces challenges     |     
  • HRW delegation meets Commission of Inquiry on Disappearances     |     
  • US Chargé d'Affaires Ann Jacobson to Meet Political Parties in BD      |     
  • With trees in flowering farmers hopeful of bumper mango crop     |     

Up to 15,000 dead in war-plagued Darfur town, UN experts say

GreenWatch Desk World News 2024-01-23, 9:38am

image-169518-1705979983-68ee60f0ec914a3ab443c304025606881705981117.jpg




A single town inSudan's war-ravaged Darfur region has seen 10,000 to 15,000 people killedsince April, with paramilitaries allied with Arab militias potentiallycommitting crimes against humanity there, according to a UN report seenMonday by AFP.

Fighting has raged since last spring between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan's troops and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo's rebelparamilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with El Geneina -- the capital ofWest Darfur state -- emerging as the nucleus of the brutal violence.
The conflict has claimed more than 13,000 lives, according to a conservativeestimate by the ACLED analysis group, on which the United Nations Office forHumanitarian Affairs (OCHA) bases its assessment. Millions of people havebeen displaced, reports BSS.
But "according to intelligence sources, between 10,000-15,000 people werekilled in El Geneina alone," according to a report by an expert panelmandated by the UN Security Council to monitor the enforcement of sanctionsagainst Sudan.
The document, sent to Security Council members but not yet officiallypublished, provides no overall death toll but describes in detail the"ethnically motivated" violence in El Geneina, which fell under RSF controlin June.
"The attacks were planned, coordinated, and executed by RSF and their alliedArab militias," who "deliberately targeted civilian neighbourhoods,(internally displaced persons) gathering sites and IDP camps, schools,mosques, and hospitals, while looting" homes, non-governmental organizationsand UN compounds, the experts wrote.
The RSF and allied militias deliberately targeted the Masalit community, thetown's majority non-Arab ethnic group, they added, saying there were snipers"placed on the main roads that indiscriminately targeted civilians, includingwomen, pregnant women, and youth."
More broadly in West Darfur, the experts said, the paramilitaries and theirallies "systematically violated international humanitarian law," with crimesincluding torture, rape, mass arrests and forced displacement.
"Some of these violations may amount to war crimes and crimes againsthumanity," the report stressed.
It also denounced the RSF violations of the arms embargo, noting from July,it deployed heavy and sophisticated weapons including unmanned drones,howitzers and rocket launchers.
"This new RSF firepower had a massive impact on the balance of forces, bothin Darfur and other regions of Sudan," according to the experts in thereport.
They also pointed the finger at the United Arab Emirates and other nations,saying there were credible allegations that the UAE was funelling "militarysupport" to the RSF through Chad, which borders Sudan's Darfur.
The UAE has denied the allegations.