(Bloomberg) -- More than 120 people were killed by militiamen belonging to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, a rights group said, as the United Nations decried indiscriminate shootings of civilians and acts of sexual violence in the East African nation.
The surge in violence occurred in the eastern part of Sudan’s Al-Jazeera state in recent days. Middle Call, a Sudanese rights groups, said it had documented 124 people killed by militiamen and at least 150 more abducted between Oct. 20-25.
The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF escalated in the past 1 1/2 years after both sides refused to forge a power-sharing deal and hold democratic elections in April 2023. The war has drawn claims of war crimes on both sides by rights groups, and the International Criminal Court has said the RSF has committed acts of ethnic cleansing.
“RSF fighters reportedly shot at civilians indiscriminately, perpetrated acts of sexual violence against women and girls, committed widespread looting of markets and homes and burned down farms,” the UN’s humanitarian office in Sudan said in a statement Saturday. Scores of residents from villages in the area have been beaten, the UN said.
Clashes in Al-Jazeera are a result of the military’s deployment of armed civilians in the area belonging to “popular resistance groups,” the RSF said in a statement on Saturday.
Al-Jazeera state, an area that once earned the title of being the nation’s breadbasket, has been decimated by conflict after Aqla Kaykal, a local militia leader fighting alongside the RSF, defected to the army.
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese army and the quasi-presidential Sovereignty Council, said in a statement that the crimes make it “impossible to tolerate the militia” and vowed to punish the perpetrators.
The war has been fueled by a growing list of proxies on both sides, according to UN investigators, the US and rights groups. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported the delivery of Mohajer-6 combat drones from Iran being used on the battle field by the army. The United Arab Emirates has supplied weapons and drones to the RSF, UN investigators say, a claim the UAE has repeatedly denied.
“We are aware that the UAE is currently the target of a coordinated disinformation campaign by the Sudanese Armed Forces and its affiliates aimed at undermining our foreign policy, regional role, and humanitarian efforts,” the UAE government said in a statement on Friday. “We strongly refute allegations regarding providing arms or military equipment to any of the belligerent warring parties to the Sudanese conflict.”
Fighting is still ongoing in the capital Khartoum and several areas in the sprawling Darfur region. Earlier this week, a Sudanese Ilyushin-76 military plane crashed close to the city of El-Fasher, killing two Russians and several Sudanese nationals, according to videos posted online by RSF fighters.
Information from Swiss intelligence provider ch-aviation showed the plane was stationed at Port Sudan, where Sudan’s army has its headquarters. It is still unclear what led to the crash.
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