UN Human Rights has expressed grave concern over reports that the RSF and allied Arab militias killed hundreds of civilians from Masalit communities in the town of Ardamta earlier this month.
This is the second ethnically motivated mass attack on Masalit civilians in West Darfur in just a few months, after hundreds of Masalit men, women and children – including former West Darfur governor Khamis Abdullahi Abkar – were killed between May and June this year.
At a press conference in Geneva on Friday, UNHCR spokesman Jeremy Lawrence said preliminary information obtained from survivors and witnesses suggested that liquefied civilians “suffered six days of terror at the hands of the RSF and allied militias after they took control of a Sudanese army base in Ardamta on 4 November.”
According to the UN News Centre, some victims were “summarily executed (without due process) or burned alive”, amid reports of sexual violence against women and girls, and thousands of people displaced, some across the border into Chad.
The RSF and allied militias reportedly looted property, tortured displaced people, and executed many “before leaving their bodies unburied in the streets” in the Ardmata and Doruti IDP camps and Hay al-Kubra.
Lawrence said hundreds of men had been arrested, whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown. The UNHCR spokesman stressed that such attacks could constitute crimes under international law.
Stop Violations and Accountability
He also referred to serious allegations that some Arab civilians had been subjected to reprisal attacks by members of the Masalit militia. He called for all violations to be stopped immediately and those responsible brought to justice “after thorough, independent and impartial investigations”.
He reiterated the call of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, for the RSF leadership to condemn and stop killings and other acts of violence and hate speech that unequivocally target civilians on the basis of their ethnicity.
“Amid worrying reports of an imminent RSF attack on El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, we remind them and all other parties to the conflict to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure,” he said.
Source: Al-Taghyeer
