Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed at least 30 civilians in a two-day assault on a village in the country’s western region of Kordofan, a war monitor said Friday.
As the conflict between the RSF and the regular army roared into its third year, Kordofan has emerged as a key battlefront, with the paramilitaries seeking to consolidate their control in the west after losing the capital Khartoum in March.
The Emergency Lawyers, a group documenting war atrocities, said RSF fighters attacked the village of Brima Rasheed, north of the RSF-controlled city of En Nahud in West Kordofan on Wednesday and Thursday.
The first raid killed three civilians, followed by a second, more violent attack that claimed 27 lives, the group said, adding that the dead included women and children.
The Emergency Lawyers said RSF’s “indiscriminate killing” of civilians constituted “a serious violation” of international law.
Casualty figures are nearly impossible to independently verify, with most health facilities shut down and large swathes of Sudan inaccessible to journalists.
The monitor said sporadic clashes were also reported between RSF fighters and armed civilians in the village, which is located north of the RSF-held city of En Nahud — a key transit point once used by the army to send reinforcements further west.
Battle for Kordofan
Violence has recently spread across En Nahud, the Emergency Lawyers said, with reports of dozens of civilians killed and residential areas attacked in and around the city.
The RSF also stormed major medical facilities in the city, expelling patients and using hospitals to treat wounded paramilitary fighters, according to the group.
It added that those who resisted were beaten or detained.
There was no immediate comment from the RSF on the attacks.
The war between Sudan’s army and the RSF has raged since April 2023, killing tens of thousands people and displacing more than 14 million.
Human rights groups and United Nations officials have documented mass killings, ethnic cleansing and other atrocities, particularly in the western regions of Darfur and Kordofan.
Last week, similar paramilitary attacks on villages in North Kordofan — about 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of state capital El-Obeid — killed nearly 300 civilians, including children and pregnant women, according to the Emergency Lawyers, sparking fresh waves of displacement.
The RSF has intensified efforts to encircle El-Obeid, where the army broke a nearly two-year siege on in February.
The city remains a crucial military stronghold and the last major road link between Khartoum and Darfur, now largely under RSF control.
Sudan is now effectively divided, with the army holding the north, east and center while the RSF dominates nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.
The war has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, pushing parts of the country into famine and leaving millions without access to food, healthcare or shelter.
