Between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in one city in Sudan’s West Darfur region last year in ethnic violence by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militia, a United Nations report seen by Reuters on Friday showed.
In the report to the UN Security Council, independent UN sanctions monitors attributed the toll in Geneina to intelligence sources and contrasted it with the UN estimate that about 12,000 people have been killed across Sudan since war erupted on April 15, last year, between the Sudanese army and the RSF.
The monitors also described as “credible” accusations that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had provided military support to the RSF “several times per week” via Amdjarass in northern Chad. A top Sudanese general accused the UAE in November of backing the RSF war effort.
Photo: Reuters
In a letter to the monitors, the UAE said 122 flights had delivered humanitarian aid to Amdjarass to help Sudanese fleeing the war.
The UN says about 500,000 people have fled Sudan into eastern Chad, several hundred kilometers south of Amdjarass.
Between April and June last year, Geneina experienced “intense violence,” the monitors wrote, accusing the RSF and allies of targeting the ethnic African Masalit tribe in attacks that “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The RSF has previously denied the accusations and said that any of its soldiers found to be involved would face justice. The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The attacks were planned, coordinated, and executed by RSF and their allied Arab militias,” the sanctions monitors wrote in their annual report to the 15-member Security Council.
In hundreds of interviews with Reuters last year, survivors described horrific scenes of bloodletting in Geneina and on the 30km route from the city to the border with Chad as people fled.
The monitors’ report included similar accounts.
They said that between June 14 and 17, about 12,000 people fled Geneina on foot for Adre in Chad.
The Masalit were the majority in Geneina until the attacks forced their mass exodus.
“When reaching RSF checkpoints women and men were separated, harassed, searched, robbed and physically assaulted. RSF and allied militias indiscriminately shot hundreds of people in the legs to prevent them from fleeing,” the monitors said.
“Young men were particularly targeted and interrogated about their ethnicity. If identified as Masalit, many were summarily executed with a shot to the head. Women were physically and sexually assaulted. Indiscriminate shootings also injured and killed women and children,” the report said.
Everyone who spoke to the monitors mentioned “many dead bodies along the road, including those of women, children and young men.”
The monitors also reported “widespread” conflict-related sexual violence committed by RSF and allied militia.
The Philippine Department of Justice yesterday labeled Vice President Sara Duterte the “mastermind” of a plot to assassinate the nation’s president, giving her five days to respond to a subpoena. Duterte is being asked to explain herself in the wake of a blistering weekend press conference where she said she had instructed that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr be killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed. “The government is taking action to protect our duly elected president,” Philippine Undersecretary of Justice Jesse Andres said at yesterday’s press briefing. “The premeditated plot to assassinate the president as declared by the self-confessed mastermind
Texas’ education board on Friday voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools, joining other Republican-led US states that pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms. The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by elected Republicans, is optional for schools to adopt, but they would receive additional funding if they do so. The materials could appear in classrooms as early as next school year. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has voiced support for the lesson plans, which were provided by the state’s education agency that oversees the more than
Ireland, the UK and France faced travel chaos on Saturday and one person died as a winter storm battered northwest Europe with strong winds, heavy rain, snow and ice. Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell onto a car on a major road near Winchester early in the day. Police in West Yorkshire said they were probing whether a second death from a traffic incident was linked to the storm. It is understood the road was not icy at the time of the incident. Storm Bert left at least 60,000 properties in Ireland without power, and closed
CONSPIRACIES: Kano suspended polio immunization in 2003 and 2004 following claims that polio vaccine was laced with substances that could render girls infertile Zuwaira Muhammad sat beside her emaciated 10-month-old twins on a clinic bed in northern Nigeria, caring for them as they battled malnutrition and malaria. She would have her babies vaccinated if they regain their strength, but for many in Kano — a hotbed of anti-vaccine sentiment — the choice is not an obvious one. The infants have been admitted to the 75-bed clinic in the Unguwa Uku neighbourhood, one of only two in the city of 4.5 million run by French aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Kano has the highest malaria burden in Nigeria, but the city has long