Emergency Lawyers says paramilitary force set fire to villages, killing dozens, including children and pregnant women.
A group of human rights lawyers in Sudan have accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of raiding and setting fire to villages in the state of North Kordofan and killing nearly 300 people, including children and pregnant women.
The statement by Emergency Lawyers late on Monday came as fighting rages between the RSF and the Sudanese army in the western areas of the country.
The two sides have been locked in a civil war since 2023, and the army has taken firm control of the centre and east of the country, while the RSF is trying to consolidate its control of the western regions, including North Kordofan and Darfur.
Emergency Lawyers said the RSF had attacked several villages on Saturday around the city of Bara, which the paramilitary force controls.
In one village, Shag Alnom, more than 200 people were killed in a “terrible massacre”, the group said. The victims were either “burned inside their homes” or shot. In the neighbouring villages, 38 other civilians were also killed and dozens more have been forcibly disappeared.
The next day, the RSF carried out “another massacre” in the village of Hilat Hamid, killing at least 46 people, including pregnant women and children, the group added.
“It has been proven that these targeted villages were completely empty of any military objectives, which makes clear the criminal nature of these crimes carried out in complete disregard of international humanitarian law,” Emergency Lawyers said, placing the responsibility with the RSF leadership.
The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday that intensified fighting in the region forced more than 3,000 people to flee the villages of Shag Alnom and al-Kordi.
Many have sought refuge in the surrounding parts of Bara, according to the UN agency.
The United States and human rights groups have accused the RSF of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Its soldiers have carried out a series of violent looting raids in territory it has taken control of across the country.
The RSF leadership says it will bring those found responsible for such acts to justice.
Sudan’s civil war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, driving more than half the population into hunger and spreading disease, including cholera, across the country.
At least 40,000 people have been killed, while 13 million have been displaced.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has launched a new probe into war crimes in the western Darfur region, and on Thursday, senior prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told the UN Security Council that her office has “reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” are being committed there.
Khan said her office has focused its probe on crimes committed in West Darfur, and interviewed victims who have fled to neighbouring Chad.
She said the depth of suffering and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur “has reached an intolerable state”, with famine escalating and hospitals, humanitarian convoys and other civilian infrastructure being targeted.
“People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponised,” Khan said, adding that abductions for ransom had become “common practice”.