Some attackers have surrounded and shot about 200 people near the Sudanese city of Al-Fashir, killing them indiscriminately. Some attackers on camels in Sudan committed a large-scale massacre in public. According to eyewitness Alkhair Ismail, the attackers shouted racial slurs and then shot them. One of the attackers spared Ismail because he knew him. Ismail pleaded with the attackers not to kill these people, but they shot everyone else, including his friends.
Ismail was targeted as he was carrying food for people trapped in the city. According to media reports, people fleeing Al-Fashir were stopped in nearby villages. The man and woman were separated and taken away, after gunfire resumed.
Human rights activists and analysts had already warned that if the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took over al-Fashir, it could lead to ethnic-based reprisals. The UN human rights office said on Friday that hundreds of innocent people and unarmed fighters had been killed.
However, the RSF has denied the allegations, saying they were a conspiracy by the opposition. The RSF victory is seen as a major turning point in the two-and-a-half-year civil war in the Darfur region. Media have verified at least three videos on social media showing people in RSF uniforms shooting unarmed prisoners, and dozens more bodies after the shooting.
A senior RSF commander said the media was exaggerating the situation and the army was trying to cover up its defeat. The RSF leadership has ordered an investigation into any violations and has arrested some people. Some soldiers and fighters were trying to escape as civilians, were caught and taken for questioning. There were no killings, as the media claims.
The international medical association Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that eyewitnesses reported that on 26 October, around 500 civilians and soldiers from the Sudanese army and its allies were trying to escape, but most were killed or captured by the RSF and its allies.
