NAIROBI
At least 89 civilians have been killed and hundreds injured in attacks by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on villages in Omdurman, a Sudanese human rights organization said Wednesday.
“The Rapid Support Forces have attacked more than 15 villages in the south of Omdurman since March 27,” said the Emergency Lawyers’ Association in a statement.
“The attacks resulted in the deaths of 89 people and the injury of hundreds due to random artillery shelling, direct gunfire and armed clashes,” it said.
Saying the RSF targeted homes, raided them and killed those inside “in a flagrant violation of human rights and international law,” the statement added that its forces engaged in widespread looting of homes and shops, arrested several young men from the villages “and forced them at gunpoint to transport the looted goods.”
The villages raided by the RSF are “entirely civilian and have no military forces,” said the statement, adding the attacks are a “complete war crime aimed at terrorizing and forcibly displacing the residents.”
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that hundreds of residents from the villages fled to the Jabal Awlia area as a result of the attacks.
They added that families fled across the Jabal Awlia Bridge which connects southern Omdurman with southern Khartoum on the White Nile River after the army regained control of it last week.
The RSF has not issued any comment on the matter.
