Ethnic killings in one Sudan city left up to 15,000 dead: UN report

Between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in one city in Sudan's West Darfur region last year in ethnic violence by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militia, according to a United Nations report.

On Friday, in the report to the UN Security Council, independent UN sanctions monitors attributed the toll in El Geneina to intelligence sources and contrasted it with the UN estimate that about 12,000 people have been killed across Sudan since war erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese army and the RSF.

Between April and June last year El Geneina experienced "intense violence," the monitors wrote, accusing the RSF and allies of targeting the ethnic Masalit tribe in attacks that "may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The RSF has previously denied the accusations and said any of its soldiers found to be involved would face justice. The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"The attacks were planned, coordinated, and executed by RSF and their allied militias," the sanctions monitors wrote in their annual report to the 15-member Security Council.

'Shot to the head'

Reuters last year chronicled the ethnically targeted violence committed in West Darfur. In hundreds of interviews with the news agency, survivors described horrific scenes of bloodletting in El Geneina and on the 30-kilometre (18-mile) route from the city to the border with Chad as people fled.

The monitors' report included similar accounts. They said that between June 14 and 17, some 12,000 people fled El Geneina on foot for Adre in Chad. The Masalit were the majority in El Geneina until the attacks forced their mass exodus.

"When reaching RSF checkpoints women and men were separated, harassed, searched, robbed, and physically assaulted. RSF and allied militias indiscriminately shot hundreds of people in the legs to prevent them from fleeing," the monitors said.

"Young men were particularly targeted and interrogated about their ethnicity. If identified as Masalit, many were summarily executed with a shot to the head. Women were physically and sexually assaulted. Indiscriminate shootings also injured and killed women and children," according to the report.

Everyone who spoke to the monitors mentioned "many dead bodies along the road, including those of women, children and young men." The monitors also reported "widespread" conflict-related sexual violence committed by RSF and allied militia.