U.S. senators kept their political differences aside to call for a strong response after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group seized new territory in Sudan, reportedly attacking civilians. They have called for the U.S. to officially designate the RSF as a foreign terrorist organization.
The war in Sudan erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between the army and the RSF, unleashing waves of ethnic violence, creating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and plunging several areas of the African nation into famine. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and about 13 million displaced, reports showed.
According to reports, Donald Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden had determined that members of the RSF and allied militias committed genocide in Sudan and imposed sanctions on the group’s leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
What happened in Al-Fashir?
Al-Fashir, the Sudanese army’s last significant holdout in the western region of Darfur, fell to the RSF on Sunday after an 18-month siege that consolidated its control of the area.
Aid groups and activists have warned of the potential for ethnically motivated revenge attacks as the RSF overwhelmed the army and allied fighters, many from the Zaghawa ethnic group. They beat and shot men fleeing from a long-besieged city in Darfur after capturing it, according to an account from escapee Ikram Abdelhameed. Reuters said that the senior citizen’s claims were corroborated by statements from aid officials, satellite images, and unverified social media videos.
The head of the UN health agency said that more than 460 people were reportedly killed in a hospital in a city in the western Darfur region that was overrun by the RSF. 460 patients and companions were reportedly killed at Saudi Maternity Hospital in el-Fasher, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization said.
They were stopped at an earthen barrier the RSF had erected around the city, where men were separated from women, she said. “They lined the men up, they said, ‘We want the soldiers,'” Abdelhameed said. When none of the men raised their hands, an RSF fighter picked out some of them who were beaten and killed, she said. “They shot them in front of us, they shot them in the street.” The women were taken to the other side of the barrier, where they could hear more beatings and gunshots, then allowed to leave. “The soldiers told us to go ahead and the men will follow, but we never saw them again,” she said.
“We are horrified by credible reports of widespread violations, including summary executions, attacks on civilians along escape routes, house-to-house raids and obstacles preventing civilians from reaching safety,” the U.N. humanitarian team in Sudan said in a statement.
Activists and rights groups have alleged that recent RSF gains in central Sudan and in Darfur have been accompanied by hundreds of civilian deaths. Both sides have dismissed past accusations of abuses, and have accused each other of carrying them out.
Sudan: RSF fighters killed patients in Al-Fashir hospital, beat Darfur men to death infornt of women and kids
