More than 120 civilians killed in attack on Sudanese village in Al Gezira

Killings mainly took place in the home village of defector commander

Sudanese women and children displaced from the Al Gezira region arrive to seek refuge in the eastern city of Gedaref on Saturday October 26, 2024. AFP

At least 124 people have been killed in a village in Al Gezira state, south of the capital Khartoum, in one of the deadliest incidents in the nation's 18-month civil war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Army, according to pro-democracy groups.

The reported killings followed last week's defection to the army by paramilitary commander Abuagla Keikal, who is a native of Al Gezira. The defection was followed by a series of deadly raids by RSF fighters in Com Keikal's home region, where thousands were also detained and displaced.

Al Sireha, his village in the north of the state, was the worst hit by the RSF fighters, which killed at least 124 there and injured another 100 on Friday, according to the Resistance Committee, a pro-democracy group in Wad Medani, the state's RSF-controlled provincial capital.

A video posted online purported to show scores of bodies wrapped in bloody blankets and sheets. Another showed the bodies laid outdoors on beds as hundreds of mourners stood by. Clips also showed the RSF fighters lining people up before shooting them.

The National could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos.

A list of the names of all 124 dead, whom residents in the area said included women and children, appeared online. Another 200 people are known to have been injured in Friday's incident.

In a statement, the RSF said its attacks in the area were prompted by the army arming civilians in Al Gezira and their service under Mr Keikal's command.

“The RSF militia is raiding east, west, and central Gezira, and committing extensive massacres in one village after another,” the Wad Medani committee said.

“It is impossible to treat the injured or even evacuate them for treatment. Those who have left on foot have died or are faced with death,” said the Sudanese Doctors Union, another pro-democracy group.

“We are monitoring the latest, shocking RSF attacks on civilians in Gezira. The killings and sexual violence are reprehensible,” the US Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello said on social media network X, adding both the RSF and army were failing to protect civilians.

The RSF and the army have been accused by the UN of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, but the paramilitary takes the lion's share of these allegations.

In the summer of 2023, RSF fighters and allied militiamen killed thousands of ethnic Masalit tribe Africans in west Darfur and forced many more to flee to neighbouring Chad. In Khartoum, they are accused of widespread sexual assaults, torture, arbitrary detentions and looting.

The army faces accusations of launching air strikes against the RSF in densely populated neighbourhoods in Khartoum and elsewhere, causing the death of thousands of civilians.

Lately, members of the army's allied volunteers are accused of extrajudicial killings in areas formerly controlled by the RSF because the victims are suspected to be members of the paramilitary or sympathisers.

The war broke out when months of tension between the army and the RSF, who had previously shared power, boiled over into violence. Tens of thousands have been killed since and more than 11 million are now displaced.

About 25 million – more than half Sudan's population – now face hunger, with pockets of famine emerging in the western parts of the vast Afro-Arab nation.

News of the killings in Al Gezira broke as the army was on the offensive in the area, trying to take back control of the agriculturally rich area. The army and allied volunteers are also on the offensive in Khartoum, most of which remains in the hands of the RSF, including the city's only international airport, the Nile-side presidential palace and a large part of the armed forces headquarters.