Corpses of hundreds of women, men and children strewn through the streets teeming with flies, schools ransacked and villages reduced to rubble. The conflict in Sudan has reached terrifying heights, according to the testimony of humanitarian workers and the United Nations, which on Thursday presented evidence of the discovery of a mass grave with at least 87 victims in the Darfur region.
A team from the NGO Save the Children fleeing from Al Geneina reported that on their journey they have seen “the corpses of hundreds of people, including children, abandoned along the road, covered in flies”, in what they describe as ” summary executions against civilians”. The road between Al Geneina and the border with Chad, one of the escape routes for those displaced by the conflict, has become a route to death in which witnesses paint in their descriptions “a terrifying picture of children, men and Women killed by the dozens, with armed men entering villages, looting and burning houses and shooting fleeing residents.”
Ahmed, a worker for this NGO in Western Darfur, escaped from the violence of the armed groups in Al Geneina and took refuge in Kassala. He sent this chilling testimony to the headquarters: “We spent 49 days locked up because the snipers did not stop outside. Our only desire was to get up at dawn to get a can of water before the fighting started again. When we finally managed to get out there were corpses all over the place. everywhere on the floor of the city of Geneina. There were thousands of men, women and children, no one was saved. There are flies everywhere.”
His story continues: “Community leaders estimate that more than 5,000 people have been killed. Four more schools have been looted and burned to the ground in Geneina. There are no civilians left, only soldiers; all the others have fled or died. The road was very difficult. We encountered dozens of checkpoints on the way. The bus driver had to pay more than one million Sudanese pounds ($1,660) to get us through.” Ahmed is now in a safe area with the rest of the team and his family. “The only thing I can think of is that people need urgent help right now,” he laments.
Save the Children puts the spotlight on the many summary executions of civilians that are taking place on the road from Al Geneina to the border. It reports reports of an attack in which 20 minors were massacred in a village in the area. In another town, Human Rights Watch documented the killing of 40 civilians, including women and children, in May: “Surviving minors witnessed the brutal killings, and militiamen looted and burned most of the town, forcing residents to flee. flee to Chad”. These dramatic attacks have restricted the access of humanitarian aid to the area.
Meanwhile, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced on Thursday the discovery in Darfur of a mass grave with at least 87 people, all murdered in June by the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FAR) and their allies. , according to the credible evidence available to him. The militiamen forced the locals to bury the victims, the majority belonging to the Masalit ethnic group, in the common grave. The events occurred between June 13 and 21 in the districts of Al Madaress and Al Jamarek, in the city of El Geneina, the regional capital.
The UN believes the massacre followed the assassination of West Darfur Governor Khamis Abakar on June 14, shortly after he was detained by the FAR. After the attack, many corpses were left on the streets for several days and witnesses told the High Commissioner that the wounded had not been allowed to evacuate to hospitals, so some victims died of their injuries without medical attention.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, condemned “in the strongest possible terms the murder of civilians and people who do not participate in the fighting” and declared himself “appalled” by the lack of respect with which the dead were treated, to their families and communities, reports Afp. Turk called for a “prompt, thorough and independent investigation into the killings, and those responsible must be held accountable,” he added. FAR sources denied their responsibility for the massacre.
Since April 15, Sudan has been immersed in heavy fighting between the army, led by General Abdel Fatah al Burhan, and the FAR paramilitaries, commanded by their former ally, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias ‘Hemedti’. The fighting is centered in Khartoum, the capital, and Darfur.
In recent weeks, the conflict has taken on ethnic overtones, pitting Arab militias against those of Masalit (non-Arab) affiliation in Darfur, which has brought to mind the conflict that already took place in the region in 2003. Then, Janjaweed militias ( now integrated into the FAR) helped the dictator Omar al Bashir to crush the rebellion of the non-Arab tribes in the area, leaving some 300,000 dead.
The ongoing conflict between Dagalo and Al Burhan threatens to drag Sudan into a new civil war, with dire consequences for its neighbors as well. With the motivation to stop the bleeding, seven border countries met this Thursday in Cairo and agreed to create “a ministerial mechanism” to seek “practical and implementable solutions” to the tragedy in Sudan, reports Efe. Egypt (host of the summit), Libya, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic and Chad have pledged to facilitate the passage of humanitarian aid and encourage dialogue between the belligerents to find a political solution.
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