Dozens of bodies have been found in a mass grave in Sudan. The people were said to have been killed by the paramilitary group “Rapid Support Forces” and allied militias, the United Nations said.
The bodies of dozens of people have been found in a mass grave in West Darfur, Sudan. The UN Human Rights Office said it had “credible information” that the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces and associated militias were responsible.
Accordingly, the bodies of at least 87 people were buried in two shallow graves near the town of Geinina. Some of the victims are members of the non-Arab Masalit ethnic group. The people were killed between June 13th and 21st. Locals were forced to dispose of the bodies.
“I condemn in the strongest terms the killing of civilians and I am also appalled at the callous and disrespectful way in which the dead, their families and communities have been treated,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. He called for a swift and thorough investigation.
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch recently called on the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate atrocities in Darfur. She also reported on the killings of members of the Masalit by the “Rapid Support Forces” and Arab militias allied with her.
Ongoing conflicts in Sudan
For months, a long-simmering power struggle between the president and the vice-president has been violently carried out in Sudan. The army is fighting former Vice President Mohammed Hamdan Daglo’s “Rapid Support Forces” militia. President Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and Daglo ended the long-term rule of dictator Omar al-Bashir together in 2019.
However, both delayed the promised transition to democracy. In addition to the capital Khartoum, the Darfur region in the west of the country has been particularly hard hit by hostilities. The conflicts between ethnic minorities in the region, such as the Masalit and the central government, which have been smoldering for decades, have escalated again as a result of the power struggle.