Urgent international intervention is required to protect civilians from violence, and provide food, water, medicines and other relief
Report by Yousif Ibrahim Abubaker Abdalla
The Sultanate of Dar Masalit
The Governor of Sudan’s West Darfur has been killed, with the warring sides in the African nation’s bloody conflict trading blame for the assassination while a U.S.-backed conflict observer says the breakaway Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are most likely responsible.
Khamis Abdullah Abakar, Governor of West Darfur, was killed last Wednesday after stating in a telephone interview with AL-Hadath TV that the RSF and aligned Arab militias have killed civilians in his state’s capital of El Geneina.
Sudan’s army accuses rival of killing West Darfur governor
Officials say Khamis Abdullah Abbakar was ‘kidnapped and assassinated’ but the RSF has not commented on the claim. Fighting in Sudan has spread from the capital Khartoum to the Darfur region.
The Sudanese army on Wednesday last accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of “kidnapping and assassinating” the governor of West Darfur state, nearly two months after a power struggle between rival generals plunged the country into a devastating war.
Khamis Abdullah Abbakar was killed in El Geneina, government officials told Reuters news agency.
Abbakar had accused the RSF and allied militias of violence which he called a “genocide.”
His killing meant the RSF has added a “new chapter to its record of barbaric crimes that it has been committing against all the Sudanese people,” the army said on Facebook, calling the incident a “brutal act.”
But in a statement, the RSF said the governor was killed at “the hands of two outlaws” despite attempts by its forces to protect him.
Cold-blooded Murder
“The outlaws raided [his residence] in large numbers… which led to the situation getting out of control, and the governor was kidnapped and assassinated in cold blood, in a scene that has nothing to do with humanity,” it said.
It called for an inquiry into the circumstances that led to the death.
A power struggle between Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemedti, led to fighting since mid-April.
More than 1,800 people have been killed since battles began, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
From April to June 2023, the Darmasalit Sultanate witnessed a series of systematic and bloody attacks launched by the Rapid Support Forces and the Janjaweed militia who commits genocide and ethnic cleansing in a racist manner against African civilians.
This report explains in detail the victims of these massacres, in terms of the number of dead and wounded, and the destruction of infrastructure, especially the health sector. Indeed, all units of Al-Geneina Teaching Hospital were destroyed, drug stores and pharmacies were looted, and some medicines were burned inside the stores. The injured and all these methods greatly affected the treatment process for the wounded and patients of all different diseases, burning homes, destroying water and production sources, as well as the siege imposed on the city of El Geneina and its localities and all the roads linking it to other regions and the state of Central Darfur and the road linking the city of El Geneina and the Chadian city of Adre.
The events of the city of El -Geneina broke out on Monday morning April 24, 2023, when the rapid support militias installed an ambush for a force of the army who were on their way to the headquarters of the Sudanese Chadian joint forces in the western side of the city of El -Geneina near Al -Geneina University, shortly after the withdrawal of the armed forces from Al -Hadath site launched the militia and the Rapid Support Forces an attack on the residents of the neighborhood of the mountain, Marsabaq, which fell in a violent way, which was killed by dozens of dead and hundreds of wounded. During the first and second events of Kranding, the events of the first, second and third mountain, who took shelter in government institutions as shelter centers, and were all burned and tens of civilians and hundreds of wounded were killed.
On Wednesday, April 26, 2023, the Janjaweed militia and the Rapid Support Forces stormed the large market for the city of Al -Geneina was completely looted and the transport of looted goods outside the state, and this market is the only one that includes commercial stores and huge stores on which the residents of West Darfur State depended on, the neighboring Chad and West Africa and the result for the great destruction that occurred on the market, the city of El -Geneina became free of food commodity, which led to almost famine.
In the third attack of the Rapid Support Forces and the Janjaweed militia, which happened on Thursday, April 27, 2023, a group of neighborhoods of the cities of El -Geneina were subjected to this attack. One of the shelters for the displaced and the constant targeting of citizens on the roads across snipers from the high areas, and the city has become completely trapped.
May witnessed the fiercest attacks, crimes against humanity and genocide. The previous attack from all directions, including the schools’ neighborhoods, the Hashab forests, and the Qalani camp for the displaced in the northwestern part of the city. The armed forces did not intervene to protect civilians and remained stationed in the 15th Infantry Division.
On May 13, 2023, the Ghabat al-Hashab neighborhoods adjacent to al-Mansoura neighborhood were subjected to a violent attack by the Janjaweed militia, backed by the Rapid Support Forces, in which a large number of civilians were killed and dozens wounded, with property looted and homes burned.
The attack took place on Sunday, May 14, 2023, when the Rapid Support militia targeted shelters and neighborhoods with heavy artillery (Katyusha, artillery 120, 82, 60-75, ground anti-aircraft guns known as dual and quadruple, in addition to the B10 cannon, RPG and launcher) in most areas The city of El Geneina, which is Burning villages and cities (Molly, Qakir, Hashab, Matari, Tandalti, Hablalanari and Nougher).
The Harrowing situation
Food running out; destruction of water sources; lack of life-saving medications and stopping operations; the Foreberga market was looted by Bakamal; burning of approximately 1000 homes in Foreberfa; the death of most people with chronic diseases, especially patients with kidney failure due to the destruction of the dialysis center at Al -Geneina Teaching Hospital; the emergence of epidemic diseases such as measles, hydronyms, and malnutrition, due to population overcrowding and pregnant women’s abortion because of the cannons; cutting and destroying of communication networks by the fast support militia to overwhelm its crimes; targeting social, civil, political and intellectuals such targeting social, civil, political and intellectuals such as (imams of mosques, civil administration leaders, lawyers, university professors, and doctors, some of them were systematically liquidated); looting all the headquarters of international and national organizations in the city of El –Geneina; the destruction of the infrastructure of official state institutions (Al -Geneina Educational Hospital, the Sultan Medical Complex, the Presidency of the Judicial Agency, the Police Presidency, the Public Prosecution, the Ministry of Finance, the livestock, health, government secretariat, customs administration and all banks); looting, sabotage and burning of Al Geneina Market etc.
Recommendations
1- Urgent and immediate international intervention to protect civilians from violence.
2- The relief by providing food, shelter and pharmaceutical materials.
3- Shifting of the wounded to a safe place for the treatment.
4- Protecting to lift the bodies.
5- Darmalite Sultanate should be placed under international guardianship.
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A poet and writer from Omdurman Umbda –Sudan, Yousif Ibrahim Abubaker works as an English Instructor, Trainer and Freelance Interpreter. He also has been working as a debate leader discussing various topics in many English Institutes, Centers, Academy and schools. He represents Sindh Courier as Honorary Correspondent in Sudan.
[Photo Courtesy: Reuters and other news agencies]
