Sudanese in ‘total panic’ as RSF troops move south
Paramilitaries known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are causing fear and panic as they move southwards in war-torn Sudan, looting cars, tractors, and homes.
Report:
Since April 15, Sudan has been gripped by a war pitting army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF has displaced innocent civilians, with the paramilitaries advancing towards south. The RSF, which control most of the capital, have been advancing along the motorway linking the capital to Wad Madani, taking village after village and terrorising its inhabitants.
The RSF has been accused of sexual violence, looting markets, and indiscriminate firing. The conflict has resulted in the deaths of 12,000 people and the displacement of 7.1 million, making it the world’s largest displacement crisis. The United Nations Security Council has expressed concern over the intensification of violence in Sudan.
On Saturday at least eight people were killed by RSF fighters in a village in Al-Jazira state, witnesses told news agencies, saying they had been shot after trying to stop their looting.
Just south of Khartoum, more than half a million people had sought shelter in Al-Jazira after the fighting overwhelmed the Sudanese capital.
Activists, who risk their lives to document the horrors, said the RSF had set up checkpoints across the state, stopping civilians as they tried to flee and ordering them to turn back.
This month paramilitaries pressed deeper into the state and shattered one of the country’s few remaining sanctuaries, forcing more than 300,000 people to flee once again, the United Nations said.
Those who remain — unable or unwilling to leave — have found themselves in what the Red Cross has called “another death trap.”
On Friday, the United Nations Security Council expressed “concern” at the intensification of violence in Sudan, while “strongly condemning” attacks against civilians and the extension of the conflict “to areas hosting large populations of displaced persons”.
