Sudan accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group on Tuesday of committing a “horrific massacre” that left 433 civilians dead in the southern White Nile State, reports Anadolu Agency.
A Foreign Ministry statement said infants were among the victims of the attacks by the rebel group in El-Geteina city in the state in recent days.
The ministry said the RSF resorted to “its usual tactic of retaliating against unarmed civilians in small villages and towns after suffering successive defeats by the Sudanese army.”
As per the Middle East Monitor, RSF-controlled areas have been shrinking rapidly in recent weeks as the army gained more ground in the capital Khartoum and other states.
The paramilitary group still controls four of Darfur’s five states, while northern and eastern Sudan remain largely unaffected by the fighting.
In Khartoum State, which consists of three cities, the army now controls 90% of Bahri in the north, most of Omdurman in the west, and 60% of central Khartoum, where the presidential palace and international airport are located. Army forces have nearly encircled these strategic sites, while RSF fighters remain entrenched in neighbourhoods in the east and south.
The Sudanese ministry called for “a decisive international stance” against the rebel group and its backers, whom it did not specify, saying that RSF crimes “surpass those of known international terrorist groups.”
It said that those supporting or participating in the RSF’s planned political charter – allegedly backed by a regional sponsor – would be complicit in its “crimes and atrocities against the Sudanese people.”
Meanwhile, in Nairobi, Kenya, a conference supporting the formation of a parallel Sudanese government convened on Tuesday.
According to an Anadolu reporter, the opening session of the so-called “Sudan Founding Alliance Conference” was attended by several armed group leaders and political figures, including National Umma Party leader Fadlallah Burma, RSF deputy commander Abdelrahim Dagalo, and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) chairman Abdelaziz al-Hilu.
The push for a parallel government is backed by political and civil groups that broke away from the Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces (Tagadum), Sudan’s largest civilian opposition alliance.
On February 10, Tagadum officially split into two factions – one advocating for a parallel government and the other opposing the move.
The Sudanese army and RSF have been fighting a war since mid-April 2023 that has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 14 million, according to the UN and local authorities. Research from US universities, however, estimates the death toll at around 130,000.
Calls by the international community and the UN for an end to the war are mounting, with warnings of an impending humanitarian catastrophe as millions face famine and death due to food shortages. The conflict has spread to 13 of Sudan’s 18 states.
