UN's Guterres 'appalled' by large-scale violence in Darfur

West Darfur governor says 'genocide' taking place in the region

A Sudanese refugee who has fled the violence in Sudan's Darfur region stands by her shelter near the border between Sudan and Chad. Reuters

Secretary General Antonio Guterres is “appalled” by reports of “large-scale violence and casualties” in Darfur, the UN said on Wednesday.

Mr Guterres “reiterates his call for the SAF [Sudanese Armed Forces] and RSF [Rapid Support Forces] to cease fighting,” the UN's Geneva office wrote on Twitter.

Reports have been especially horrific in West Darfur's El Geneina, where a reported “genocide” is taking place, regional governor Khamis Abbakar said in a television interview.

“Civilians are being killed randomly and in large numbers,” he said.

While the RSF and allied militias had originally been focused on areas of El Geneina where members of the Masalit tribe live, attacks had now spread to the entire city, he said.

“We haven't seen the army leave its base to defend people,” he added.

A Khartoum-based co-ordination group for local resistance committees, which were formed during the 2019 uprising against then-president Omar Al Bashir, released “preliminary” death tolls from northern, west and central Darfur.

“One of the most heinous scenes of the war were found in the cities of Kutum, Gneina and Zalanji, where a few bits of preliminary information reveal the death of 1,100 civilians and around 2,100 injuries,” the east Khartoum resistance committee co-ordinator wrote in a Facebook post.

The group also said that “full villages were burnt down”, confirming videos that The National has seen but was not able to verify.

On Tuesday, Volker Perthes, the Secretary General's special representative for Sudan, said information received by the UN “paints a clear picture of the devastating scale of impact” of the war on civilians.

“As the situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate, I am particularly alarmed by the situation in El Geneina following various waves of violence since late April which took on ethnic dimensions,” he said.

“While the United Nations continues to gather additional details regarding these reports, there is an emerging pattern of large-scale targeted attacks against civilians based on their ethnic identities, allegedly committed by Arab militias and some armed men in Rapid Support Forces' uniform.

“These reports are deeply worrying and, if verified, could amount to crimes against humanity.”

On Tuesday, the UN said that about 1.7 million people had been displaced internally while more than half a million people had fled the country.

About 1,000 people have been killed since the fighting began on April 15, the Sudanese Doctors Union said. It added that the number is likely to be an undercount due to the security situation.