DUBAI/CAIRO (Reuters) – The Sudanese army on Tuesday condemned what it called “individual violations” in Sudan’s El Gezira in recent days after rights groups blamed the army and its allies for ethnically-targeted attacks on civilians.
The attacks largely targeted people from western Sudan living in the central state because of accusations they collaborated with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which is fighting the army in a near two-year civil war.
Earlier this week, the Sudanese army and allied forces recaptured the state capital Wad Madani from the RSF, marking a possible turning point in the devastating conflict.
Emergency Lawyers, a human rights group, said that 13 people were killed in a farming settlement known as Kambo Tayba after the army advanced through the area.
It said the attacks followed hate speech linking residents to the RSF. The group also cited other incidents of civilians being rounded up, tortured, or executed in recent days. The reports could not be verified by Reuters.
“The Armed Forces condemn the individual violations that have recently occurred in some areas of El Gezira following the cleansing of Wad Madani, and at the same time affirms … its keenness to hold accountable anyone involved in any violations that affect any person in the kanabi (settlements for farmers from western Sudan) and villages,” the army said on Tuesday.
El Gezira was the site of a year-long campaign of looting and violence against civilians by RSF fighters that drove hundreds of thousands of residents away. Some residents said that young men from the long-marginalised kanabi participated in the RSF raids.
In a video shared on social media but not verified by Reuters, a civilian pleads with soldiers who surround him and accuse him of being in the RSF. Then one soldier backs the man up against a brick wall and shoots him multiple times.
In another, a young man is pushed off of a bridge by a group of men. One of the men was wearing a jacket with the insignia of the al-Baraa ibn Malik battalion, an Islamist militia allied to the army. Reuters located the video to Hantoob bridge in Wad Madani but was not able to confirm the date.
“The biggest loser in this war are innocent, defenceless civilians, who are daily paying a high price as a result of the continued conflict,” the Sudanese Doctors Union said in a statement. “… while their circumstances prevent them from leaving these areas.”
(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz and Nafisa Eltahir; additional reporting by Deniz Uyar, Aaron McNicholas, Eleanor Whalley, Reade Levinson; Editing by Ros Russell)
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