Piled up, shot, thrown into river: Witnesses reveal gruesome details of alleged ethnic cleansing in Darfur

Atrocities after an intense fighting in Sudan that broke out in mid-April last year led to the killing of thousands of people. Now over a year later, witnesses are recalling the harrowing scenes of children being "piled up and shot" by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an independent military force in armed conflict with the Sudan military, as the innocent civilians attempted to escape the ethnic violence in Darfur.

The testimonies were revealed in the 218-page report titled - “The Massalit Will Not Come Home.”

The report pointed out that the atrocities were carried out by RSF in collaboration with their allied mainly Arab militias, including the Third-Front Tamazuj. They targeted the Massalit neighbourhoods of El Geneina in "relentless waves of attacks" from April 2023 to June 2023.

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The findings were on the basis of interviews conducted with 221 people, including 174 residents of El Geneina and surrounding villages. The abuses took place when they were trying to flee to Chad. HRW researchers also analysedvideos, photos, and satellite imagery.

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Yasin Adam Ahmad, a man in his mid-30s, was fatally shot in the neck on April 25 while he was fleeing with a group of children and women past the burning al-Qadima school,according to his sister-in-law Muna.

A 15-year Zainab who took shelter at what she reportedly termed as the Child Protection gathering point said, "We were seven or so [women and girls] in the room and my father. They started beating my father. My mother said: ‘Don’t beat him!’ They shot my father in the chest and my mother in the throat… They told everyone to leave, and then they burned it [the site]."

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"They pushed all the children together into a group. They piled up the children and then shot them and threw their bodies into the wadi (river), and then threw their belongings in after them," said a 17-year-old boy Malik.

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Taher, a medical assistant, observed numerous decomposing bodies in the dry bed of the Kajja river, situated along the Sudan-Chad border near the Beida and Atia villages. He thinks that these corpses were individuals who had either drowned or been shot during the chaotic stampede in El Geneina in the early hours of June 15, their remains carried by the river's currents.

El Fasher situation dire

The situation in El Fasher, the last city held by Sudan’s military in Darfur, is particularly dire, with fears of an impending large-scale massacre as it is surrounded by the RSF.

Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch said, “As the UN Security Council and governments wake up to the looming disaster in El Fasher, the large-scale atrocities committed in El Geneina should be seen as a reminder of the atrocities that could come in the absence of concerted action."

“Governments, the African Union, and the United Nations need to act now to protect civilians.”

(With inputs from agencies)