A mass grave containing the bodies of at least 87 people has been found in Sudan’s West Darfur region. The human rights branch of the United Nations reports on the basis of “reliable sources” that the victims were killed by the RSF paramilitary group. Among the victims, who are said to have been buried on June 20 and 21, are seven women and seven children. Most of the bodies found in the mass grave belong to the Masalit minority group.
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After the conflict in Sudan between generals Hemedti (leader of the RSF) and Burhan (army chief and president) in the capital Khartoum, which broke out in April, an old conflict flared up in the western region of Darfur. The RSF and other Arab militias have been violently sweeping through Darfur for weeks now, looting and setting fire to non-Arab villages. The Masalit are of African descent and therefore victims.
Khamis Adbulla Abaker, governor of the town of El Geneina in West Darfur, spoke at the beginning of June of “a genocide” by the RSF. Not much later he was killed, according to government sources by the same RSF. Its town of El Geneina is one of the hardest hit towns in West Darfur. There is no running water and electricity and hospitals no longer function properly. The injured are treated at home, often without anesthesia.
Three million displaced people
The conflict in the East African country, which has been going on for about three months, has so far claimed the lives of more than 1,000 civilians, according to the UN. At least three million Sudanese have been displaced so far in the country with a population of about 44 million. Of these, about 750,000 fled abroad, about 2.4 people looked for a safer place in their own country. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned last weekend that Sudan is on the brink of “full-blown civil war”.
Due to the outbreak of conflict, the UN’s World Food Program expects up to 2.5 million people to go hungry in the coming months. The number of people in the country affected by acute food insecurity will therefore rise to more than nineteen million. That is about 40 percent of the population.