Fighters from a paramilitary force and allied Arab militias rampaged through a town in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region, reportedly killing more than 800 people in an attack lasting several days, doctors and the United Nations said.
The attack on Ardamata in West Darfur province earlier this month was the latest in a series of atrocities in Darfur that have marked the months-long war between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Sudan has been in chaos since mid-April, when simmering tensions between military chief General Abdel-Fattah Burhan and the commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Force, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, led to all-out war.
The war came 18 months after both generals toppled an interim government in a military coup. The military takeover ended Sudan’s short-lived, fragile transition to democracy after a popular uprising that forced the overthrow of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.
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In recent weeks, the RSF has advanced into Darfur, taking over entire towns and cities across the sprawling region, even as the warring parties returned to the negotiating table in Saudi Arabia late last month. The first round of talks brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia failed to reach a ceasefire.
The days-long attack in Ardamata came after the RSF took over a military base in the city on November 4 following brief fighting with troops there, said Salah Tour, head of the Sudanese doctors’ union in West Darfur. He said the military had withdrawn from the base, adding that around two dozen wounded soldiers had fled to Chad.
Spokespeople for the military and RSF did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.
After capturing the military base, the RSF and its allied Arab militias rampaged through the city, killing non-Arabs in their homes and setting fire to shelters for displaced people, Tour said.
“They violently attacked the city,” he said, adding that the RSF and its militias had targeted the African Masalit tribe. “They went from house to house, killing and arresting people.”
The Darfur Bar Association, an advocacy group, accused RSF fighters of committing “severe violations of all kinds against defenseless civilians” in Ardamata. It cited a November 6 attack in which the RSF killed more than 50 people, including a tribal leader and his family.
According to the UNHCR, more than 800 people were reportedly killed and 8,000 others fled to neighboring Chad. However, the agency said the number of people who fled was likely an underestimate due to difficulties registering new arrivals in Chad.
The agency said about 100 shelters in the city were razed and there was extensive looting, including the agency’s humanitarian aid supplies.
“Twenty years ago the world was shocked by the horrific atrocities and human rights abuses in Darfur. We fear that a similar dynamic could develop,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
The US State Department said it was “deeply disturbed by eyewitness reports of serious human rights violations by the RSF and affiliated militias, including killings in Ardamata and ethnic attacks on Masalit community leaders and members.”
“These horrific actions once again highlight the abuses committed by the RSF in connection with its military offensives,” it said in a statement.
Ardamata is located a few kilometers north of Geneina, the provincial capital of West Darfur. The RSF and Arab militias launched attacks on Jeninah, including a major attack in June that drove additional non-Arab populations into Chad and other areas of Sudan.
The paramilitary group and its allied Arab militias have also been accused by the UN and international human rights organizations of atrocities in Darfur, where genocide occurred in the early 2000s. These atrocities included rape and gang rape in Darfur, but also in the capital Khartoum. Almost all reported cases were attributed to the RSF.
The U.N. human rights office said in July, citing credible information, that a mass grave containing at least 87 bodies had been found outside Geneina. Such atrocities prompted the International Criminal Court prosecutor to say he was investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in recent fighting in Darfur.
The conflict claimed around 9,000 lives and triggered “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in modern history,” according to UN Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths. More than six million people have also been displaced from their homes, including 1.2 million who sought refuge in neighboring countries, according to the UN.
The fighting was initially concentrated in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, but quickly spread to other areas in the East African country, including Darfur.
It turned the capital into a battlefield and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure, most recently the collapse of a bridge over the Nile that connected the northern part of Khartoum to the capital’s sister city, Omdurman. Both sides exchanged accusations of blowing up the Shambat Bridge.