RSF militia accused of 'massacre' in Sudan's Gezira state

CAIRO, Egypt

The attacks in the north and east of Gezira state have been called a massacre by the Gezira Conference, a local civil society organization.

It said fighters belonging to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) stormed a town in the Al-Kamelin locality on Friday morning and began firing indiscriminately from high-rise buildings. At least 50 people were killed and hundreds more injured.

In the the city of Tamboul in Gezira's north, RSF fighters went on rampage, killing dozens of civilians and displacing thousands of others.

Local groups say the attacks appear to be motivated by rage after a top RSF commander defected to the army side. Abu Aqlah Keikel, the de facto ruler of Gezira province surrendered to the Sudanese military in early October. Keikel hails from Gezira state.

The Doctors' Union in Sudan has said that RSF attacks turned areas in eastern Gezira into “a brutal war zone.”

It accused the fighters of committing sexual crimes, attacks on health facilities and forced displacement.

A senior United Nations official on Friday called for more international attention to “the forgotten crisis” in Sudan, where more than a year and a half of war pushed the African country to the brink of famine.

The appeal by Ted Chaiban, deputy head of the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, came as the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces rampaged through villages and towns in east-central Gezira province, looting and vandalizing public and private properties, according to a doctors’ union and a youth group. Dozens of people were reported killed.

Chaiban said the war, which erupted in April 2023 between the military and the RSF, created “one of the most acute crises in living memory” with more than 14 million people forced to flee their homes, making Sudan the world’s largest displacement crisis.

“We’ve never in a generation seen these types of numbers,” he told The Associated Press in an interview, referring to the displaced people, as well as the 8.5 million people who are facing emergency levels of food insecurity, and 775,000 others who are facing famine-like conditions.

“The whole country has been dislocated,” he said. “And yet, despite that, the country and the crisis is forgotten.”