Khaberni -It took villagers in Shaq al-Noum in North Kordofan an entire day to bury the dead from a devastating attack launched by the Rapid Support Forces on Saturday.
Saleh Abdel Rahim (a pseudonym for fear of reprisals) told Agence France-Presse "On Sunday we collected bodies from the village streets and inside the houses and buried 200 bodies in our village alone."
Abdel Rahim made his statements via a satellite communication device from an area near the Rapid Support Forces' locations, to circumvent communication cuts.
The attack by the Rapid Support Forces, which has been waging a war against the army since April 2023, falls within a series of recent attacks against villages in the area about 250 km southwest of Khartoum.
According to the "Emergency Lawyers" group documenting the crimes, nearly 300 civilians were killed between Saturday and Sunday in North Kordofan.
It is impossible to verify the number of deaths independently, due to restrictions on media operations in the region.
Abdel Rahim said "it was indescribable," adding "under artillery shelling, houses and their inhabitants burned."
He pointed to the arrival of Rapid Support Forces vehicles "under a barrage of machine gun fire and drone attacks," saying "we had no choice but to resist to defend ourselves."
The "Emergency Lawyers" group accused the Rapid Support Forces of killing "women and children, abducting civilians, and looting livestock near Bara," the town they control.
The group reported that all rural residents in the area had fled.
North Kordofan state, which holds strategic importance for the Rapid Support Forces due to fuel smuggling through it to Libya, has seen fierce clashes for several months.
The Rapid Support Forces are trying to encircle the city of Al-Obeid, located in the center of North Kordofan, which serves as the last link between Khartoum and the Darfur region in western Sudan largely under their control.
Despite a siege ongoing for over a year, the city of Al Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, remains outside the control of the Rapid Support Forces.
According to Sudanese analyst Khulood Khair, “the Rapid Support Forces aim to control the Al Fasher-Al Obeid axis before the rainy season.”
The rainy season peaks in August, making most roads impassable until September and slowing any military progress.
