ADF STAFF
Human rights advocates say fighters with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) murdered hundreds of civilians in al-Gezira State in revenge for the defection of a senior RSF commander in that region.
RSF fighters attacked the community of al-Sireha in October after the defection of Abu Aqla Keikal, a former Army officer who joined the RSF after the conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) broke out in April 2023.
In a video posted to social media in October 2024, RSF fighters showed nearly 70 people, some with bloody clothing, being held at an intersection in the small agricultural community.
The RSF fighter filming the video says in Arabic: “Keikal … look, these are your people,” and forces the prisoners to make animal sounds.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed the authenticity of the video, one of two that RSF fighters posted showing their actions in response to Keikal’s defection.
Keikal rejoined the SAF along with a group of his staff and supporters. According to the Sudan Tribune, Keikal received a grant of amnesty that SAF’s chief has offered anyone leaving the RSF.
After Keikal’s defection on October 20, RSF fighters spent five days rampaging through 30 communities in heavily agricultural northern and eastern al-Gezira State. An estimated 130,000 people fled to safety elsewhere in Sudan.
RSF fighters attacked civilians in al-Sireha, a small community surrounded by farm fields. Middle Call, a Sudanese rights group, documented at least 124 people killed and 150 others kidnapped in al-Sireha from October 20 to 25.
The Sudan Protection Cluster reported that the attacks killed about 300 civilians in Tamboul, about 100 kilometers from al-Sireha. More than 46,500 people fled Tamboul after RSF fighters ambushed SAF troops and drove them out of the community.
HRW verified videos showing RSF fighters detaining men in al-Sireha and reviewed satellite images that revealed possible new graves in the village.
“The killings and appalling human rights violations in al-Gezira [State] intensify the unacceptable human toll this conflict has taken on the people of Sudan,” Amy Pope, director general of the International Organization for Migration, told The Associated Press.
Witnesses told United Nations investigators that RSF fighters shot randomly at civilians and raped women and girls in the community. Fighters also looted markets, burned crops and poisoned food supplies, killing another 50 people, witnesses told investigators.
A 55-year-old resident of Tamboul told HRW that RSF fighters rounded up men and boys when they entered the community.
“I saw an RSF soldier shoot a man in the chest,” she said. “They kept shouting at us to leave the town. They said whoever stays here will not be considered a civilian.”
Another Tamboul resident said RSF fighters went house to house looking for Keikal’s relatives.
“They threatened to kill anyone related to him,” the man told HRW.
Keikal left the RSF after the paramilitary group suffered a series of battlefield losses to the SAF, which spent much of 2024 regaining ground it had lost to the RSF earlier in the war.
In recent weeks, the SAF scored an important victory by retaking Wad Madani, the capital of al-Gezira State. The RSF had controlled the city since December 2023.
Human rights advocates decried the deaths of hundreds of civilians at the hands of RSF fighters.
“These are atrocious crimes,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, told Middle East Eye. “I am shocked and deeply appalled that human rights violations of the kind witnessed in Darfur last year — such as rape, targeted attacks, sexual violence, and mass killings — are being repeated in al-Gezira State.”
