On Monday, more than 120 civilians were killed by bombings in Omdurman, a city bordering the Sudanese capital Khartoum. The AFP news agency reported this on Tuesday based on a Sudanese network of volunteer rescue workers. Omdurman is partly in the hands of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and partly by the government army. The bombs fell in the Dar al-Salam area, where the RSF is based. That makes it likely that government forces are behind the bombings.
It would not be the first time that government army bombardments have killed civilians: in early December, for example, the army bombed a market in North Darfur, killing more than a hundred people. Rescue workers say there is a serious shortage of medical supplies, including first aid medicines. In addition, health workers had great difficulty treating “a large number of injured people.”
The bombings come after government forces recaptured the strategically located town of Wad Madami last weekend. It marked a possible turning point in the battle, as the capture was the first gain for the government army since the start of the war 21 months ago. On Monday, the army was five kilometers away from the national airport near Khartoum.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and eleven million have been displaced in the civil war. In addition, there is a famine. Human rights organizations describe the situation as one of the largest humanitarian crises on earth. Both the government army and RSF are accused by the United Nations of using hunger as a weapon of war. The war is difficult to map, partly because both the government army and RSF use auxiliary troops and are dependent on foreign military support, the army of Iran and RSF of the United Arab Emirates.
According to the US, RSF commit genocide by “systematically” killing men and boys based on their ethnicity, while women and girls from certain ethnic groups face sexual violence. Human Rights Watch said in May that genocide was taking place in Darfur, a region the size of France. The government army is also accused of war crimes.
MMV Koert Lindijer
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