NAIROBI, Kenya — The armed men arrived on motorcycles, horses and cars. For hours, they fired into houses, leveled shops and destroyed clinics, witnesses said, turning life upside down in El Geneina, a town in Sudan’s Darfur region.
The violence in mid-May, which killed at least 280 people in two days, came just hours after two military factions fighting for control of Sudan signed a pledge to protect civilians and allow the flow of humanitarian aid. .
Truce agreements have failed to end fighting that broke out on April 15 between the Sudanese army and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Fighting has decimated areas of the capital Khartoum. But the war has also spread across the country to the western region of Darfur, an area already ravaged by 20 years of genocidal violence.
The gunmen who broke into El Geneina were backed by paramilitary forces. They ran into fierce resistance from armed fighters, including some of the city’s residents, who had been given weapons by the army, according to witnesses.
“The situation is catastrophic in parts of Darfur,” said Toby Harward, Darfur coordinator for the United Nations refugee agency that has been receiving displaced people in neighboring Chad. “Your people live in a dystopian nightmare where there is no law and order.”
More than 370,000 people have fled Darfur in recent months, reports the International Organization for Migration.
For years, the government of former dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir has waged a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur that has killed up to 300,000 people since 2003.
The two generals now vying for power in Sudan — General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the army and Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan of the paramilitary forces — were among those who carried out the atrocities, which ultimately led to an indictment against Al-Bashir. at the International Criminal Court.
When fighting broke out in Khartoum, rival forces also began fighting in Darfur. Regional leaders were able to quickly negotiate a truce that stopped fighting in parts of Darfur. But soon after, the region fell back into chaos.
At least a dozen women have been raped in El Geneina, said Mona Ahmed, a women’s rights activist who fled the city last month. She said the actual number of rape victims is likely higher.
“There is no protection for them, no medical or social support,” said Ahmed, 27. “Horror thrives in that kind of environment that is cut off from the rest of the world.”
By: Abdi Latif Dahir and Cora Engelbrecht
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6761200, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-06-14 20:00:08
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