\n Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said they had arrested several fighters accused of abuses during the capture of El-Fasher, with the United Nations demanding an investigation Friday into the \"horrendous accounts\" of atrocities emerging from the city.\n<\/p>\n
\n At war with the army since April 2023, the RSF seized El-Fasher on Sunday, dislodging the army's last stronghold in the western Darfur region after an 18-month siege marked by bombardment and starvation.\n<\/p>\n
\n Survivors who reached the nearby town of Tawila told AFP of mass killings, children shot before their parents, and civilians beaten and robbed as they fled.\n<\/p>\n
\n The RSF said late Thursday it had detained several men accused of \"violations... during the liberation\" of El-Fasher, including one known as Abu Lulu who appeared in multiple TikTok videos committing summary executions.\n<\/p>\n
\n In one clip verified by AFP, he is seen shooting unarmed men at close range. Another shows him standing among fighters celebrating near dozens of bodies and burnt vehicles.\n<\/p>\n
\n The RSF released footage appearing to show Abu Lulu behind bars in what they claimed to be a North Darfur prison.\n<\/p>\n
\n It pledged to ensure \"military discipline during wartime\", and promised a fair trial for those detained.\n<\/p>\n
\n Since El-Fasher's fall, videos circulating online have purportedly shown men in RSF uniforms carrying out summary executions around the city, which has been cut off from all communications.\n<\/p>\n
\n Emtithal Mahmoud, a US-based Sudanese poet from El-Fasher, told AFP she recognised her cousin, Nadifa, in a video shared by RSF accounts, lying dead on the ground.\n<\/p>\n
\n The UN said the death toll could reach the hundreds, while army allies have accused the RSF of killing over 2,000 civilians.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Horror is continuing' -\n<\/p>\n
\n On Friday, the United Nations voiced alarm at emerging details of executions, gang rapes and abductions in El-Fasher.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We have received horrendous accounts of summary executions, mass killings, rapes, attacks against humanitarian workers, looting, abductions and forced displacement,\" said UN rights office spokesman Seif Magango.\n<\/p>\n
\n Magango called for \"independent, prompt, transparent and thorough investigations\" into all alleged breaches of international law.\n<\/p>\n
\n The World Health Organization, meanwhile, said it had verified that at least 460 patients and others were killed Tuesday in attacks on the Saudi Maternity Hospital -- one of the last still functioning in El-Fasher.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Thursday, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council that \"the horror is continuing\" in El-Fasher, and questioned the RSF's commitment to investigating violations amid the \"appalling news\" from North Darfur.\n<\/p>\n
\n RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo had earlier vowed accountability for \"anyone who has made a mistake\", while an RSF-led coalition maintained many incriminating videos were \"fabricated\" by the army.\n<\/p>\n
\n Satellite imagery analysed by Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab showed clusters in the city \"consistent with adult human bodies\", and discoloration that may indicate \"pools of blood\", its director told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair said she was sceptical that the purported arrests would bring an end to the violence.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We expect these atrocities to continue, particularly against non-Arab groups,\" she told AFP, citing communities such as the Zaghawa, Fur, Berti and Masalit in Darfur.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2023, the RSF -- descended from the Janjaweed Arab militias accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago -- was blamed for massacres against the Masalit tribe in West Darfur capital El-Geneina, killing up to 15,000 people.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Overall, these patterns reflect a disturbing repetition of ethnic tensions from 20 years ago, now compounded by disputes over resource control and political power in the country,\" Khair said.\n<\/p>\n
\n More than 62,000 people have fled El-Fasher between Sunday and Wednesday, according to the UN's migration agency, while the fate of tens of thousands of civilians still trapped in the city remains unknown.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Bloodshed in Kordofan -\n<\/p>\n
\n Fletcher warned that the bloodshed was spreading beyond Darfur, with atrocities reported in the neighbouring Kordofan region.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to UN figures, between Sunday and Wednesday more than 35,000 people fled five localities in North Kordofan state, including Bara, which lies north of state capital El-Obeid on a key route to Darfur and which was overrun by paramilitaries on Saturday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Martha Pobee, the assistant UN secretary-general for Africa, highlighted \"reports of large-scale atrocities perpetrated\" by the RSF in Bara, including \"ethnically motivated\" reprisals.\n<\/p>\n
\n At least 50 civilians were killed there in recent days, both in fighting and executions, including five Red Crescent volunteers, according to the UN.\n<\/p>\n
\n Kordofan is \"clearly going to be the next area of military escalation\", analyst Khair said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The RSF Thursday accused the army of launching a drone attack on a school in eastern North Kordofan, claiming dozens of students and teachers were killed or injured -- an allegation the army denied.\n<\/p>\n
\n AFP could not independently verify the attack.\n<\/p>\n
\n Both the army and the RSF have faced war crimes accusations over the course of the conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n The RSF has received weapons and drones from the UAE, according to UN reports. Abu Dhabi has denied giving any support to the paramilitary group.\n<\/p>\n
\n Meanwhile, the army has drawn on support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey.\n<\/p>\n
\n The US has previously determined the RSF committed genocide in Darfur.\n<\/p>\n
\n El-Fasher's fall to the RSF gave it full control over all five state capitals in Darfur, effectively splitting Sudan along an east-west axis. The paramilitaries have established a self-declared rival government in Darfur.\n<\/p>\n
\n The army holds Sudan's north, east and centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said they had arrested several fighters accused of abuses during the capture of El-Fasher, with the United Nations demanding an investigation Friday into the \"horrendous accounts\" of atrocities emerging from the city. At war with the army since April 2023, the RSF seized El-Fasher on Sunday, dislodging the army's last […]<\/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-151607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n