'Mass killings' in Sudan city captured by militia

Reports of ethnically motivated mass killings and other atrocities are emerging from El Fasher after paramilitaries took control of the city in Darfur, Sudan, over the weekend.

- Carlos Mureithi

Video released by local activists showed a fighter known for executing civilians in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces shooting a group of unarmed people sitting on the ground at pointblank range.

Separate footage shared by pro-democracy activists appeared to show dozens of people lying dead on the ground alongside burnt-out vehicles. The footage has not been verified.

Yesterday, the Joint Forces, allies of Sudan's army, accused the RSF of having executed more than 2,000 unarmed civilians in recent days.

Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, which has been monitoring the war in Sudan using open-source intelligence and satellite imagery, said that it had found evidence consistent with mass killings by the RSF.

Yesterday, the lab said El Fasher "appears to be in a systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing of Fur, Zaghawa and Berti Indigenous non-Arab communities through forced displacement and summary execution". This included what appeared to be "door-to-door clearance operations", it added.

Nathaniel Raymond, the lab's executive director, said satellite evidence showed bodies and red discolouration on the ground. He compared the violence to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide.