The United Nations claims that a massive grave in West Darfur contains the remains of dozens of people slain by Sudanese paramilitaries and associated militia.
The UN Human Rights Office reportedly discovered the cemetery outside of Geneina that had the dead of 87 individuals, many of them were members of the African Masalit tribe.
Since mid-April, when combat broke out between the military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan has been rocked by bloodshed.
As paramilitary soldiers and affiliated Arab militias assault the Masalit alongside various African ethnic groups, Darfur has become one of the conflict’s epicenters and a theater of bloodshed.
The United Nations organization claims 37 people were laid to rest in the tomb on June 20. Fifty more corpses were added to the same grave the next day. There were seven female victims buried.
In an interview with Reuters, Brig. Gen. Nabil Abdullah, a spokesman for the Sudanese armed forces, said that the finding of the mass grave was a war crime.
A senior official from RSF who requested anonymity stated they completely denied any connection to the events and did not get involved in a conflict because the conflict is a tribal one.
The governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abdallah Akbar, recently gave an interview to the Saudi-owned television channel Al-Hadath in which he accused the RSF and associated militias of targeting local people. Later that day, he was kidnapped and murdered. Who murdered him and why remains unknown.
There have been reports of heavy battles, a wave of migration, and looting throughout the nation after claims by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that they had captured a town in South Darfur.
According to a statement released by the RSF on Sunday, they had “full control” of the 61st Brigade of the Sudanese Armed Forces in the area of Kas in South Darfur after claiming a major win against the SAF there.
The RSF said it had seized the brigade’s colonel and 30 other members of the SAF, along with 13 combat vehicles and 70 artillery. The Sudanese military has not yet commented.
