The UN demanded action on Saturday to stop “wanton killings” of people escaping El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, carried out by Arab militias assisted by paramilitary forces.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, his former deputy, and the Sudanese army, under the command of Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, have been engaged in combat for more than two months.
The bloodiest violence has been raging in Darfur, a wide western region on the border with Chad, where the United Nations has warned the conflict has taken on a “ethnic dimension.”
In a statement, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. rights office, said, “We are gravely concerned that such wanton killings are continuing and urge immediate action to stop them.”
“Safe passage for those fleeing El Geneina must be guaranteed, and access for aid organizations to gather the bodies of the dead must be permitted,” she continued.
The Geneva-based U.N. rights office said that refugees who made it to Chad had recounted “horrifying accounts of armed ‘Arab’ militia backed by the Rapid Support Forces killing people fleeing El Geneina on foot.”
Witnesses had reportedly provided “corroborating accounts” of Arab militia targeting Masalit men who were not Arab, according to the report.
“All those interviewed also spoke of seeing dead bodies scattered along the road—and the stench of decomposition,” it stated. About 10 kilometers (six miles) from Sudan’s border with Chad, “multiple people spoke of seeing dozens of bodies in an area referred to as Shukri.”
On the road from El Geneina to the border between June 15 and 16, the U.N. rights office reported that all but two of the 16 people it spoke with claimed that they had seen “summary executions” and the targeting of civilians.
In a statement last week that “primarily” blamed the RSF paramilitary force for the murders, the United States said that up to 1,100 people had died in El Geneina.
The U.N. rights agency stated that El Geneina had become “uninhabitable,” that vital infrastructure had been destroyed, and that assistance passage to the city was still obstructed.
It demanded that the RSF leadership “immediately, clearly condemn and cease the killing of people fleeing El Geneina.
It stated that “those accountable for the murders and other acts of violence must be held accountable.” “We demand the immediate creation of a safe passageway for civilians to leave areas affected by hostilities as well as a humanitarian corridor between Chad and El Geneina.”
