KHARTOUM: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, locked in a conflict with the regular army, said Saturday that they had seized the town of Al-Tina on the Chad border.
Previously, the town was thought to have been held by the Joint Forces, allied to the army, which has been at war with the RSF since April 2023.
Alongside a statement posted to social media, the RSF shared a video of some of its fighters celebrating under a banner reading “District of Al-Tina.”
The army did not immediately comment, but the pro-army governor of Darfur, Minni Minnawi, denounced what he called “repeated criminal behavior embodying the worst offenses against the innocent.”
Since it broke out, Sudan’s civil war has killed tens of thousands of people and forced 11 million to flee their homes, triggering what the UN says is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
On Thursday, the United Nations’ independent fact-finding mission on Sudan said the RSF’s storming of Darfur hub El-Fasher last October bore “the hallmarks of genocide.”
Since the fall of El-Fasher, the paramilitaries have carried out several operations near the Chad border and at the end of last year two Chadian soldiers were killed.