CAIRO (AP) — At least 100 people were killed and dozens were injured after paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked a village in Sudan’s Gezira province on Wednesday, officials said.
Women, children and the elderly were among those killed in the Rapid Support Forces attacks on the village of Wad al-Noura in Gezira, Mini Arko Minawi, the governor of Darfur province, said on X, formerly Twitter.
A grassroots group formed to protect residents of Wad Madani, the capital of Gezira, said on social media late Wednesday that the paramilitary force, which has been fighting the Sudanese army for more than a year, used heavy artillery to destroy the village to besiege and attack. .
The Madani Resistance Committee, which has been threatened and attacked by the RSF in the past, accused the paramilitaries of looting Wad al-Noura amid the attacks which it said began on Wednesday morning.
The RSF claimed in December that it had taken control of Wad Madani, about 100 kilometers southeast of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, and a refuge for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting.
The resistance committee said the RSF had invaded the village and expelled residents, including women and children, to other parts of al-Manaqil district.
Sudan’s transitional government, in a statement on its Telegram channel, condemned the attacks and called on the international community to hold the RSF accountable.
“These are criminal acts that reflect the systematic behavior of these (RSF) militias by attacking civilians, looting their property and forcibly expelling them from their areas,” said the media office of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, which was established after the impeachment. from former President Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
The RSF claimed late on Wednesday that the Sudanese army was planning to attack its forces in Jabal al-Awliya, in the west of al-Manaqil district, by mobilizing Sudanese forces in three bases. The Associated Press could not verify this claim.
The paramilitary group said it attacked three camps west, north and south of Wad-al Noura, clashing with the Sudanese army.
“Our armed forces will not stand idly by at enemy movements or gatherings and will work to pursue and defeat the enemy,” the RSF said in its statement.
The war between the RSF and the Sudanese army has devastated the country as the clashes spread across several cities and incited the population the brink of famine. More than 14,000 people have been killed and thousands injured. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
