Sudan paramilitary group kills more than 200 people in three-day attack, activists say
Guardian3 days
Sudan: Human Rights Network Accuses Warring Sides of Executing Civilians
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Above: Members of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a security detail in the capital Khartoum on June 16, 2019. Image copyright: YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Contributor via Getty Images
The Facts
A human rights network in Sudan accused on Tuesday the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of killing more than 200 civilians, including children, and leaving hundreds injured or missing and feared drowned, in a three-day attack on White Nile villages, south of Khartoum. The army-backed government says the death toll stands at 433.
The Sudanese Emergency Lawyers further reported that the regular army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), carried out summary executions, forced disappearances and arbitrary detentions in Bahri, north of Khartoum, against civilians whose names were on a list of alleged RSF collaborators posted on social media.
This comes as both sides have been accused of abuses and war crimes in the conflict that broke out in April 2023 and has since claimed the lives of tens of thousands, displaced more than a dozen million people, and set off one of the biggest humanitarian crises ever recorded worldwide.
The Spin
Narrative A
Even if both sides may have committed abuses in the war, they are not the same. It's clear that the RSF — a UAE-backed illegitimate militia that poses a threat to the sovereignty and the very existence of Sudan — is the greater evil. Hopefully, the armed forces will continue to make territorial gains and lead the country back to democracy.
Narrative B
That the senseless war in Sudan may be finally heading to an end is good news, but it's unlikely that Sudan will become a democracy any time soon. Neither warring side actually cares about the people and their will; quite the contrary, as the latest developments stress that they are merely war criminals fighting for power.
