Ethnically-driven killings in Sudan's war have jumped this year, UN says

Sudan has seen a significant rise in civilian killings during the first half of this year due to growing ethnic violence, largely in the western region of Darfur, the U.N. human rights office said on Friday.

The conflict that erupted in Sudan in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has unleashed waves of ethnically-driven killings, caused mass displacement and created what the U.N. has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

At least 3,384 civilians were killed between January and June, mostly in Darfur, according to a new report by the Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights.

The figure is equivalent to nearly 80% of the civilian casualties in Sudan documented last year. Throughout the war, casualty numbers have been hard to track because of the collapse of local health services, fighting, and communications breakdowns, among other reasons.

ETHNICITY AS MOTIVATION FOR VIOLENCE

"Every day we are receiving more reports of horrors on the ground," OHCHR Sudan representative Li Fung told reporters in Geneva.

The majority of killings resulted from artillery shelling as well as air and drone strikes in densely populated areas, the report said.

It noted many deaths occurred during the RSF's offensive on the city of al-Fashir, the last holdout of its rivals in Darfur, as well as on the ZamZam and Abu Shouk camps for displaced people in April.

At least 990 civilians were killed in summary executions in the first half of the year, the report found, with the number between February and April tripling.

That was driven mainly by a surge in Khartoum after the army and allied fighters in late March recaptured the city previously controlled by the RSF, the OHCHR said.

"One witness who observed SAF search operations in civilian neighbourhoods in East Nile, Khartoum between March and April, said that he saw children as young as 14 or 15 years of age, accused of being RSF members, summarily killed," OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said.

Fung said ethnicity was a motivating factor for violence, which she described as very concerning.

She explained that certain ethnic communities were being targeted because they are associated with the leadership of the SAF and RSF, building upon decades of discrimination and division between different groups and identities in the diverse nation.

Both sides in Sudan's war have repeatedly denied deliberately attacking civilians.

The humanitarian situation in Sudan was dire and worsening, said Patrick Youssef, Africa Regional Director for the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

Sudan faces its worst cholera outbreak in four years across the country, with 2,500 cases reported in Khartoum since June, he said.

"We really pray that it's contained within days or weeks ... My worst nightmare would be a bigger spread in Khartoum, if the populations want to return back to Khartoum," he said.