More than 120 people were killed in Sudan’s Al Jazira state during an attack by paramilitary forces who besieged villages in the area on Friday, according to an updated toll released Monday by the health minister.
Health Minister Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim reported that Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries “committed a massacre against civilians in al-Shariha in Al Jazira state,” resulting in “over 200 injured and 124 martyrs.”
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell expressed deep concern over the escalating violence, stating that “at least 124 people were killed in Al Jazira last week – including at least ten children, some under ten years old – and at least 43 children were wounded.”
The attacks come as part of Sudan’s ongoing conflict between the RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and the Sudanese Armed Forces under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto leader.
The war, which began on April 15, 2023, has claimed between 20,000 and 150,000 lives, though doctors note many deaths go unrecorded.
The RSF has recently intensified violence against civilians in the agricultural state of Al Jazira, south of Khartoum, after a local RSF commander defected to the army.
The Sudanese doctors’ union has appealed to the United Nations to secure humanitarian corridors to villages facing what they termed “genocide” by RSF forces, as rescue operations have become impossible.
Medical sources report that all health centres in the besieged communities have been forced to close.
(information from amna.gr)
