The UN rights office said tens of thousands of people have fled Al-Fashir amid the fighting.
Hundreds of civilians and unarmed fighters may have been killed during and after the capture of Al-Fashir by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the UN human rights office said on Friday.
The city, once the Sudanese army’s last major stronghold in Darfur, fell to the RSF on Sunday after an 18-month siege.
“We estimate the death toll of civilians and those placed hors de combat during the RSF attack on the city and its exit routes, as well as in the days after the takeover, could amount to hundreds,”
said Seif Magango, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, at a press briefing in Geneva.
Magango cited witness accounts describing summary executions and mass killings, including one account of “a couple of hundred men” being shot by fighters who shouted racial slurs.
How the RSF responded
A senior RSF commander rejected the allegations, calling them “media exaggeration” spread by the army and its allies “to cover up for their defeat and loss of Al-Fashir.”
The commander said RSF leaders had ordered investigations into any reported abuses and that some members had already been arrested, according to Reuters.
Why the UN is concerned
The UN rights office said tens of thousands of people have fled Al-Fashir amid the fighting. Some survivors walked for three to four days to reach the nearby town of Tawila, Magango said.
He added that aid workers reported at least 25 women were gang-raped when RSF fighters entered a shelter for displaced people near the university.
“Witnesses confirm RSF personnel selected women and girls and raped them at gunpoint, forcing the remaining displaced persons around 100 families to leave the location amid shooting and intimidation,” Magango told reporters.
The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, condemned the abuses, saying: “Lives in Sudan now depend on strong and decisive action to stop these atrocities.”
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worldnews24u.com
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