Dozens of civilians have been killed and thousands displaced in Sudan’s Gezira state, aid groups said, after several days of attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been battling the army for more than a year.
A union of doctors and a youth group said the RSF attacked several villages and towns in the east-central state of Gezira, looting and vandalising public and private properties, and leaving dozens dead, The Associated Press news agency reported on Saturday.
RSF attacks in al-Sireha, a village in Gezira state, continued for three days, with 50 people killed in one day alone, according to aid groups that have been tracking the deaths and publishing the list, seen by Al Jazeera.
Fighting erupted on April 15, 2023, as a result of a power struggle between the RSF led by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Since then, the conflict has displaced more than 10 million people, creating one of the worst global humanitarian crises, according to data from the United Nations.
Since September, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have been pursuing a major offensive to retake areas in and around the capital, Khartoum, from the control of the RSF.
Ted Chaiban, deputy head of UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, called for more international attention to “the forgotten crisis” in Sudan.
In an interview with The AP on Friday, Chaiban said the war has created “one of the most acute crises in living memory” with more than 14 million people forced to flee their homes, plunging Sudan into the world’s largest displacement crisis.
About 25.6 million people – more than half of Sudan’s population – are expected to face acute hunger this year due to the conflict.
The UNICEF and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, are calling for unimpeded access to people in need across the country.
The war has been marked by atrocities such as mass rape and “ethnic cleansing”, which the UN said amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly in the western region of Darfur, which has been facing a bitter onslaught by the RSF.