Air strikes by Sudanese military forces tore a crowded market in the western part of Darfur's country, killing at least 54 people and injuring dozens more, according to local watch groups that called the attack a war crime.
Monday's attack came as Sudanese troops continued to make drastic profits in the capital Khartoum and continued to seize the Presidential Palace on Friday. The military is now trying to completely drive its enemy, paramilitary swift support forces out of the city.
However, the atrocities reported in Darfur reminded us of the brutal sacrifices of Africa's biggest Sudanese war, as they approach two years. Videos and photos from the aftermath of a strike in Tora, a small town in North Darfur, show dozens of burnt bodies and partial human remains scattered across the smoldering expanse at the town's market.
The video was globalized into Toura by the Sudanese Witness Project of Senter for Information Resilience, a nonprofit that documents potential war crimes. Satellite images and data from NASA satellites detecting the fire confirmed an area of ​​about 10,000 square meters was burned on Monday.
The exact toll was unknown. A Sudanese watch group said dozens of people had been killed. American international advocacy group Avaaz has killed more than 200 people, citing a local group. There were 54 names on the handwritten list of deaths provided by activists in Darfur.
Witnesses said the attack came from the air. Although the rapid support force does not have an air force, Sudanese forces have recently been carrying out other airstrikes in the area.
The military said in a statement that the assertion that the attack is a cruel act against civilians is “completely false and is repeatedly raised whenever our troops exercise their constitutional and legitimate rights to engage in hostile targets.”
The military statement said it would “strictly adhere to targeting protocols in accordance with international law,” and then condemned the swift supporters of “systematically attacking civilians since the outbreak of war.”
Sudan's vast civil war has chased nearly 13 million people from their homes since it began in April 2023, causing the deaths of tens of thousands, according to UN and Western estimates. Part of the country is hunger. Both sides are accused of atrocities.
The rapid support forces face the most frequent atrocities accusations, including the US genocide accusations against ethnic massacres carried out by the Darfur army.
However, the Army is frequently accused of indiscriminate bombings in areas held by rapid support forces, often killing dozens of people at once. Most of these attacks are also being carried out in Darfur.
“These are all poor, innocent, unarmed people,” said the narrator of one graphic video as he walked through the strike massacre in Tora on Monday. “They don't belong” to either side, he added.
Analysis of the Times footage showing several pockets of burnt ground across the market suggests that there have been multiple explosions. In video filmed at the scene, witnesses said four missiles have appeared on the market, one crashing into the centre and hitting three suburbs.
Emergency lawyers are a Sudanese group that documented atrocities on both sides of the war, calling it “terrifying massacre” and potential war crimes.
In Khartoum, military officers said Tuesday that paramilitary groups had withdrawn from Burri, the main area between the Nile River and the major international airport.
A walking tour of the city centre with Sudanese army is lined with destroyed office blocks, passing through streets littered with shredded and burnt cars. Half a dozen decomposition bodies lie at one traffic junction.
The explosions and gunfire echoed as the army tried to wash away the last remaining pockets of RSF fighters in the area.
Regional commander Brigg said it would take two weeks to drive paramilitary groups out of the city. General Yasir Hassan. He led journalists to capture an armored vehicle that he said was supplied to the RSF by the group's main foreign sponsor, the United Arab Emirates.
General Hassan explained that the Emirates denying support for the RSF is denying “evil statistics.” It is an unusually harsh language between the once gentle Arab countries that pointed to the deep divisions brought about by the Sudan war.
The bombing of Darfur was an ominous foreshadowing of the future direction of the war.
If the RSF is kicked out of Khartoum, it is likely to retreat to Darfur and promise to establish a parallel government there. This raises the prospect of Sudan being divided into rival regimes, as Libya has been appearing since the Arab Spring of 2011.
Analysts say it is likely that RSF will step up its efforts to acquire El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.
Report contributed Declan Walsh and Abdalrahman Altayeb From Khartoum, Sudan, and from Abubakr Abdelbagi Christophe Coetre From New York.
