CAIRO (AP) – The 43-year-old widow ran out outside her home last month when Aaram Said woke up to the sound of a gunshot and a roaring vehicle motor Sudan was ravaged by the war To find a line of at least 20 vehicles, many of them are motorcycles carrying armed fighter jets.
“They were firing in all directions,” the mother of the four said. “At a moment, all of us in the village were running away for safety,” many people were either shot at home or were trying to escape. At least 200 people, including many women and children, were killed, including many women and children, according to the rights group’s tracking. Sudan’s civil war.
Saeed and her child – ages 9-15 were among those who survived after rebel fighters ran rampage through Shag al-Num, a small farm village of thousands Kordofan Region of Sudan. In an interview with the Associated Press, Saeed and four other villagers described the July 12 attack. This is one of the deadliest attacks since the war began over two years ago over a power struggle between military commanders and rival paramilitary groups known as the Rapid Support Force or RSF.
Villager accounts will be added The catastrophic sacrifice of conflictIt began in April 2023 and destroyed a country in northeastern Africa. The battle killed more than 40,000 people, evacuated 14 million people, caused illness outbreaks, and pushed many places On the brink of hunger.
In Darfur, particularly, atrocities, including mass murder of civilians and mass rape, have also been reported, sparking an investigation into the possibility by the International Criminal Court. War crimes and crimes against humanity.
“Hell’s door has opened.”
Villagers in Shag al-Num said RSF fighters and their alliance Janjaweed Militias had plundered the community, particularly women’s gold residents, and plundered the residents who robbed them. Some victims were detained at muzzle.
Some young villagers tried to fight back by taking up rifles to protect their homes. The RSF fighters defeated them and continued their rampage, witnesses said.
“It was as if the door to hell had opened,” Said sobbed. Her straw house and the house next door burned out, and one RSF fighter seized the necklace. “We were almost dying of fear,” she said.
Villagers said the fighters also sexually abused or raped many women. One of the women said she saw three fighters wearing RSF uniforms and dragged the young woman into an abandoned home. She later said she met a woman. The woman said she was raped.
Satellite images from July 13th and 14th showed “deliberate arson attacks,” “big smoke points,” and “destroyed and smoldered” buildings over the village, the Humanitarian Laboratory at Yale University’s School of Public Health reported.
More than 450 civilians were killed in the RSF attacks in Shaq Al-Noum and surrounding areas, including 35 children and two pregnant women, UNICEF said.
After the attack, many of the survivors fled, leaving behind almost abandoned villages.
RSF did not respond to questions about the attack from the AP.
Both sides are seeking control of the oil-rich Kordofan region
Beyond villages, the oil-rich Kordofan region has it It emerged as a major front line After the military recaptured Khartoum earlier this year. Fighting parties competed to control three province regions that stretch across southern Sudan and central Sudan.
“Kordofan has become the most strategic region in the country,” said Cameron Hudson, an African expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The fight has exacerbated the already tragic situation in the region.
In Kaduguri, the capital of the province of Southern Kordofan, “roads are cut off, supply lines are collapsed, and residents are walking the miles just to find salt and matches,” said Cadley Franny, Sudan’s country director for Mercy Corpse Aid Group.
Mental health therapist Oveid, the capital of the Northern Cordofan provincesaid the city has received a wave of displaced people in recent weeks from an area that was recently ambushed by the RSF.
The therapist spoke on condition of anonymity due to concerns about her safety, saying she supported 10 women and girls who endured sexual abuse, including rape, in areas removed by RSF in July alone. Among the victims were two women from Shaguar Nam Village, she said.
“The conditions are tragic,” she said.
Another epicenter of starvation and disease
To the west of the Kordofan region is Elfasher, the last military base in the five Province Darfur regions. City – Until now Under constant RSF artillery According to the United Nations, more than a year – one of the hardest hits by hunger and disease outbreaks
Global food programs were unable to provide assistance on land. This month, it warned that 300,000 people who are “confined, hungry, and running out of time” are at risk of starvation.
“Everyone at Elle Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,” said Eric Perdison, director of food programs in East and South Africa. “Without immediate and sustained access, life is lost.”
Satellite images recently analyzed by Yale’s Humanitarian Institute show that paramilitary organizations and their Janjaweed allies imposed a total blockade of Elfasher, leaving no routes from cities that were not controlled by the RSF.
The lockdown has caused food prices to skyrocket up to 460% higher than elsewhere in Sudan, according to the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies. Most staples are either missing or no longer available.
According to Yale Lab, civilians who want to leave the city must pass a single RSF control point where they have been stolen, paid for bribes and are forced to kill or killed.
On August 2nd, a group of people, including women and children, tried to escape from the city. When they arrived in Garni, a village on a key supply route just northwest of the city, RSF fighters ambushed the area, residents said.
“They tell you to leave, then they kill you,” said 63-year-old Al Amin Ammar, who said he ran away because he was old. “It’s a death trap.”
At least 14 people have been killed and dozens of people have been injured in the village, according to an emergency lawyer rights group.
Apart from the battle, the area was destroyed by a lack of food, Cholera outbreaksaid Adam Regal, a spokesman for a local aid group known as General Coordination. Many people rely on cattle feed to survive, and have nothing to rely on, he said. Some people haven’t even found feed, he said.
He shared images of exhausted children with his exhausted, malnourished mother on the outskirts of Elfasher and nearby town of Tawila.
“People aren’t waiting for food or medicine,” he said. “In fact, they are waiting for death.”
Widow Saba Hego’s 12-year-old son has been recognized Cholera and Tweila will be joining dozens of other patients in the hospital that meets each other.
“He’s sick and dying,” Hego said of her youngest child. “He’s not alone. There are many people like him.”
