RSF goes on killing rampage in El Fasher

Sudan's civil war has entered a new, horrific phase, reports PBS. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have gone on a killing rampage after taking over the key city of El Fasher in Western Darfur after over a year-and-a-half of siege. Hundreds of thousands have fled to neighbouring Tawila, escaping famine and mass executions. Last week, the people of El Fasher, beaten and threatened, attacked and hunted, fled for their lives from a murderous militia that films itself unleashing ferocious violence. The UN and international humanitarian groups accuse the RSF of entering El Fasher's Saudi Maternity Hospital and killing everyone inside. At least 450 people are dead. El Fasher was the last holdout in Darfur of the Sudanese Armed Forces, which has fought the RSF in a brutal three-year civil war. Sudanese cities have become battlegrounds. Both sides are accused of war crimes. The civilians are being massively targeted. They are not so-called collateral damages, but they are being targeted as people living in El Fasher and people who dare to resist. Women, are on an extreme level of pain, extremely exposed to sexual violence. And in Tawila, children arrive on the verge of starvation, and some of them orphaned.

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Full PBS.org report

Meanwhile, British military equipment has been found on battlefields in Sudan, used by the RSF, according to documents seen by the UN Security Council. According to The Guardian, UK-manufactured small-arms target systems and British-made engines for armoured personnel carriers have been recovered from combat sites in a conflict that has now caused the world’s biggest humanitarian catastrophe. The findings have again prompted scrutiny over Britain’s export of arms to the UAE, which has been repeatedly accused of supplying weapons to the RSF in Sudan. They also raise questions for the UK Government and its potential role in fuelling the conflict. Months after the UN security council first received material alleging that the UAE may have supplied British-made items to the RSF, new data indicates that the British Government went on to approve further exports to the Gulf state for military equipment of the same type. The UAE has repeatedly denied allegations it gives military support to the RSF. Evidence that the UK continued supplying military equipment to the UAE, despite the risk it could end up fuelling Sudan’s ruinous conflict, has prompted deep concern. Abdallah Abugarda, chair of the UK-based Darfur Diaspora Association, which represents Sudanese from the western region of Darfur, called for an investigation into the issue. A spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: ‘The UK has one of the most robust and transparent export control regimes in the world. All export licences are assessed for the risk of diversion to an undesirable end user or end use.’

Full report in The Guardian