PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s warring parties traded accusations of deadly attacks on civilians as fighting raged in the center and west on Friday between the regular army and paramilitaries.
The army-backed government accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of causing at least 120 civilian deaths over two days in Al-Jazira state, Sudan’s pre-war breadbasket where fighting has raged since last month.
The RSF in turn accused the regular armed forces of killing 60 people in an air strike in North Darfur, where they have been battling to retain a foothold in the western region otherwise controlled by the paramilitaries.
The conflict in Sudan pits the regular army, under Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, against the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
It has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people since April 2023 and displaced more than 11 million more, according to the International Organization for Migration.
“The Janjaweed militia (paramilitaries) committed a new massacre in the town of Hilaliya in Al-Jazira state over the past two days,” the foreign ministry of the army-backed government said in a statement late Thursday.
It said 120 civilians had been killed “either by gunfire or due to food poisoning and lack of medical care.”
The army-backed government routinely refers to the RSF as Janjaweed, an infamous militia recruited by the then government in Khartoum to suppress an ethnic minority rebellion in the western region of Darfur two decades ago.
The Sudan Doctors’ Union said that after “stealing all the possessions of residents in Hilaliya, the militia detained people inside mosques, only allowing them to leave after paying large sums, which are impossible to afford after the extensive looting and theft.”
Witnesses said that the RSF had laid siege to the town for two weeks, leaving residents without safe food and water or access to medical care.
“A large number of citizens are suffering from acute diarrhea and are suspected of having cholera, without access to any medical care,” the Doctors’ Union said, adding that the death toll was “rising rapidly.”
On Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that attacks on more than 30 towns and villages in Al-Jazira state since October 20 had driven more than 135,000 people from their homes.
Witnesses reported the first direct clashes between the paramilitaries and former comrades who defected to the army with their commander, Abu Aqla Keykal, last month.
In the vast western region of Darfur, the RSF said that an air strike by the regular armed forces had killed more than 60 civilians and wounded hundreds in a displaced persons’ camp.
“The heinous assault... destroyed Al-Farouq Primary School, which was sheltering over 35 displaced families in the town of Al-Kuma,” a spokesman said on the RSF’s official Telegram channel.
“Hundreds were wounded as a result of the strike, which involved more than seven missiles and bombs.”
Parts of North Darfur state, including its besieged capital El-Fasher, a city of some two million people, are the only parts of the region still under the control of the army and its allies.
UN officials have voiced mounting concern about the dire conditions in Darfur and across Sudan.
“The people of Sudan are living through a nightmare of violence — with thousands of civilians killed, and countless others facing unspeakable atrocities, including widespread rape and sexual assaults,” UN chief Antonio Guterres told the Security Council late last month.
Sudan foes trade accusations as fighting rages in center, west
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Sudan foes trade accusations as fighting rages in center, west
- The army-backed government accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of causing at least 120 civilian deaths over two days in Al-Jazira state
- The RSF in turn accused the regular armed forces of killing 60 people in an air strike in North Darfur
As Iran conflict spills over, Iraq’s Kurds say ‘this war is not mine’
- The Kurds, an ethnic minority with a distinct culture and language, are rooted in the mountainous region spread across Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and Iran
- “This isn’t my war,” said 58-year-old Satar Barsirini
SORAN, Iraq: On a deserted road not too far from the border between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan, Satar Barsirini looked up at the sky, now streaked with jets and drones.
Iraq’s Kurdish region has found itself caught in the crossfire of a regional war triggered by US and Israeli attacks on the Islamic republic.
Dressed like the Kurdish fighters he once served alongside, Barsirini still wears the khaki shalwar, fitted jacket and scarf wrapped around his waist.
Though recently retired, he refuses to give up his peshmerga uniform as he tills his small plot of land.
The rumble of jets and hum of drones “come from everywhere. Especially at night,” he told AFP in the hamlet of Barsirini, dozens of kilometers from the border.
He described the “shiver in our flesh” as the drones hit the ground outside.
“I feel bad for the people, because we have paid a lot in blood to liberate Kurdistan... We just want to live.”
Irbil, the autonomous region’s capital, and the valleys leading to the border have been targeted by Tehran and the Iraqi armed groups it supports.
American bases there have come under fire, as have positions held by Iranian Kurdish parties — the same ones US President Donald Trump said it would be “wonderful” to see storm Iran.
But Iran warned on Friday it would target facilities in Iraqi Kurdistan if fighters crossed into its territory.
“This isn’t my war,” said 58-year-old Barsirini.
He recalled the brutal repression and flight into the snowy mountains after the 1991 Kurdish uprising that followed the first Gulf War.
- ‘Dangerous people’ -
The uprising was repressed, leading to an exodus of two million Kurds to Iran and Turkiye.
“When we fled the cities for our lives, we went to Iran. They helped us, they gave us shelter and food,” he said.
The Kurds would not forget that, Barsirini stressed, adding that they could not just “turn against them” now to support the US and Israel.
“I don’t trust (Americans). They are dangerous people,” he said.
The Kurds, an ethnic minority with a distinct culture and language, are rooted in the mountainous region spread across Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
They have long fought for their own homeland, but for decades suffered defeats on the battlefield and massacres in their hometowns.
They make up one of Iran’s most important non-Persian ethnic minority groups.
A week of war has gripped daily life in Iraqi Kurdistan, residents told AFP.
“People are afraid,” said Nasr Al-Din, a 42-year-old policeman who, as a child, lived through the 1991 exodus — “thrown on a donkey’s back with my sister.”
“This generation is different from the older ones” that have seen “seen fighting.”
Now, he said, you could be “sitting down in your home... and all of a sudden a drone hits your house.”
“We may have to go into town or somewhere safer,” said Issa Diayri, 31, a truck driver waiting in a roadside garage, his lorry idle for lack of deliveries from Iran.
- ‘Shouldn’t get involved’ -
Soran, a small town of 3,000 people about 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the border, was hit Thursday by a drone that fell in the middle of a street.
There, baker Yussef Ramazan, 42, and his three apprentices, hurriedly made bread before breaking their fast.
But, living so close to the Iranian border, he said “people are afraid to come and buy it.”
He told AFP he did not think it was a good idea “for the Kurdish region to get involved in this war.”
“We are not even an independent country yet. We would like to become one, but we are nothing for now, so we shouldn’t get involved in these situations.”
Across the street, Hajji watched from his empty dry cleaning shop as the road cleared.
Before the war, the town was crowded as evening fell, he said, declining to give his full name.
“But after the drone explosion, no one was here. In five minutes, everyone left the street and no one was out.”
