\n Reports were mounting on Tuesday of ethnically motivated atrocities in the western Sudanese city of El-Fasher since its capture by paramilitaries, with allies of the army accusing fighters of executing \"more than 2,000\" civilians.\n<\/p>\n
\n El-Fasher fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after more than 18 months of brutal siege warfare, giving the group control over every state capital in the vast Darfur region.\n<\/p>\n
\n Allies of the army, the Joint Forces, said on Tuesday that the RSF \"committed heinous crimes against innocent civilians in the city of El-Fasher, where more than 2,000 unarmed citizens were executed and killed on October 26 and 27, most of them women, children and the elderly\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Local groups and international NGOs had warned that El-Fasher's fall could trigger mass atrocities, fears that Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab said were coming true.\n<\/p>\n
\n The monitor, which relies on open source intelligence and satellite imagery, said the city \"appears to be in a systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing of Fur, Zaghawa, and Berti indigenous non-Arab communities through forced displacement and summary execution\".\n<\/p>\n
\n This included what appeared to be \"door-to-door clearance operations\" in the city.\n<\/p>\n
\n In a report published on Monday, it said the actions of the RSF \"may be consistent with war crimes and crimes against humanity and may rise to the level of genocide\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The same day, UN rights chief Volker Turk spoke of a growing risk of \"ethnically motivated violations and atrocities\" in El-Fasher.\n<\/p>\n
\n His office said it was \"receiving multiple, alarming reports that the Rapid Support Forces are carrying out atrocities, including summary executions\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Pro-democracy activists, meanwhile, said El-Fasher residents had endured \"the worst forms of violence and ethnic cleansing\" since the RSF claimed control.\n<\/p>\n
\n A video released by local activists and authenticated by AFP shows a fighter known for executing civilians in RSF-controlled areas shooting a group of unarmed civilians sitting on the ground at point-blank range.\n<\/p>\n
\n The paramilitaries have a track record of atrocities, having killed as many as 15,000 civilians from non-Arab groups in the West Darfur capital of El-Geneina.\n<\/p>\n
\n The army, which has been fighting the RSF since April 2023, has also been accused of war crimes.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Harder to unwind' -\n<\/p>\n
\n More than a year and a half of siege warfare made El-Fasher one of the grimmest places in a war that the UN has labelled among the world's worst humanitarian crises.\n<\/p>\n
\n Displacement camps outside the city were officially declared to be in famine, while inside it, people turned to animal fodder for food.\n<\/p>\n
\n The UN warned before the city's fall that 260,000 people remained trapped there without aid, half of them children.\n<\/p>\n
\n The African Union's chairman Mahmoud Ali Youssouf on Tuesday expressed \"deep concern over the escalating violence and reported atrocities\", and condemned \"alleged war crimes and ethnically targeted killings of civilians\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The Sudanese army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said on Monday that his forces had withdrawn from El-Fasher \"to a safer location\", acknowledging the loss of the strategic city.\n<\/p>\n
\n He pledged to fight \"until this land is purified\", but analysts said that Sudan was now effectively partitioned along an east-west axis, with the RSF having already set up a parallel government.\n<\/p>\n
\n Alan Boswell, project director for the Horn of Africa at the International Crisis Group, told AFP: \"The longer this war drags on, this division will likely only grow more concrete and harder to unwind.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n - Foreign backers -\n<\/p>\n
\n Anwar Gargash, an adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, called the city's capture a \"turning point\" that showed \"the political path is the only option to end the civil war\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The UAE has been accused by the UN of supplying the RSF with weapons, a charge it denies. It is also a member of the so-called Quad -- alongside the United States, Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- which is working for a negotiated peace.\n<\/p>\n
\n The group has proposed a ceasefire and a transitional civilian government that excludes both the army and the RSF from power.\n<\/p>\n
\n Talks last week in Washington involving the Quad made no progress.\n<\/p>\n
\n The army has its own foreign backers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey, observers have reported. They too have denied the claims.\n<\/p>\n
\n In March, the army retook full control of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, but with both sides now having achieved significant gains neither appears willing to compromise in negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reports were mounting on Tuesday of ethnically motivated atrocities in the western Sudanese city of El-Fasher since its capture by paramilitaries, with allies of the army accusing fighters of executing \"more than 2,000\" civilians. El-Fasher fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after more than 18 months of brutal siege warfare, giving the group control […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-151480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n