UN Raises Alarm Over Surge in Mass Killings in Sudan’s Gezira State
A senior United Nations official has expressed deep concern over reports of widespread violence against civilians in Sudan’s central Gezira state. The reports detail a brutal wave of attacks, allegedly carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which include mass killings, sexual violence, looting, and arson.
Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, voiced her horror at the alleged “atrocious crimes,” which she said mirror similar abuses seen in the Darfur region last year, where the RSF was accused of ethnic cleansing.
According to local activist groups, at least 124 people were killed in a series of attacks targeting villages over the past week. While the RSF denies deliberately targeting civilians, claiming its fighters are clashing with militia forces backed by the military, witnesses and activists paint a grim picture of widespread human rights abuses.
Gezira state became a major hotspot in the ongoing 18-month Sudanese conflict last week following the defection of high-ranking RSF commander Abu Aqla Kayka to the military. His switch of allegiance, along with a considerable portion of his forces, marks the first major defection to the military’s side, sparking intensified clashes. In response, the RSF issued a statement warning that it would “decisively deal” with armed opponents.
Between October 20 and 25, reports indicate the RSF launched large-scale assaults across Gezira state, resulting in horrific violence. Nkweta-Salami highlighted preliminary reports of mass killings, the rape of women and girls, widespread looting, and the burning of farms and homes.
The Wad Madani Resistance Committee, a local advocacy group, accused the RSF of committing “extensive massacres in one village after another,” and Sudan’s doctors’ union has urged the UN to press both parties in the conflict to establish humanitarian corridors to affected areas. The union described conditions in the villages as “genocidal” and added that rescue operations have become impossible, stressing that the military is “incapable” of safeguarding civilians in these areas.
Sudan’s conflict erupted in April 2023 after a power struggle between RSF leader Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and Sudanese military head Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Once allied, the two leaders led a 2021 coup that halted Sudan’s transition to democracy, but their alliance deteriorated into a bitter fight for control, which has devastated Sudan and led to tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of over 11 million people.
Efforts by international powers, including the United States and Saudi Arabia, to mediate peace have so far been unsuccessful, leaving Sudan’s civilians at the mercy of an unyielding conflict.
