Sudanese paramilitaries committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during their campaign to seize the town of El-Fasher last year, according to a report by a rights group.
The siege and takeover of the town in the western region of Darfur marked one of the bloodiest episodes of the Sudanese civil war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
“RSF crimes included murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, torture, rape, sexual slavery, other forms of sexual violence, slavery, extermination and persecution,” said an Amnesty investigation published Wednesdayexternal.
RSF has not commented on the Amnesty report, but has denied such accusations.
Sudan remains locked in a power struggle for three years between the regular army and the RSF paramilitaries. The ongoing civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced more than 14 million people from their homes.
Widespread sexual violence against men, women and children is used as a weapon of war, says the UN.
The RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have been accused of war crimes, which they deny.
After being forced to leave the capital, Khartoum, in March last year, the RSF focused on consolidating its control over the western region of Darfur by capturing El-Fasher and extending its influence into the southern Kordofan states.
Amnesty believes that RSF fighters committed serious human rights violations in and around El-Fasher during the 18-month siege of the city.
“Children were not collateral damage of this violence: they were often deliberately targeted and suffered enormously. They were killed, injured, raped, kidnapped and forcibly conscripted on a large scale,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
In its report detailing dozens of accounts from more than 200 survivors, Amnesty said the evidence collected “may be relevant to the crime of genocide.”
“They tied me up and beat me with sticks and the back of an AK-47. Then one of them approached on a camel and… shot me in the leg,” said a 17-year-old who was attacked in Abu Zerega, a town south of El Fasher.
The teenager, who now uses crutches to walk, said eight of his cousins, including four boys aged 11 to 17, were killed in the same attack.
Amnesty researchers, who reviewed 89 open source videos and conducted extensive analysis of satellite images of North Darfur, say many victims were targeted and killed because of their ethnic identity.
Arab RSF fighters have targeted non-Arab local community members, according to the rights group, often using ethnic slurs translated as “slave” or “servant.”
Arab militias associated with the RSF have a long history of violence against black African groups in Darfur.
In the case of El-Fasher, the armed groups defending the town were predominantly from the Zaghawa ethnic group, and RSF fighters targeted Zaghawa civilians as well as fighters, Amnesty says.
Witnesses also spoke of massacres, sexual violence and deliberate targeting of children.
Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty, said that “the world was warned of the horrors that the civilians of El-Fasher faced when the RSF besieged the town.”
“It is a stain on the conscience of humanity,” Callamard added, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan and the urgent deployment of an international force to protect civilians.
Amnesty says it has identified RSF commanders responsible for violations of international law and emphasizes the need for accountability.
RSF’s leadership has acknowledged that some violations took place and said it is investigating them, but insists the scale of the atrocities is exaggerated.
The report adds to growing evidence of atrocities in El-Fasher, which the UN said early last year bore the “marks of genocide”.
More than 6,000 people were killed in just three days after the assault on El-Fasher, the UN said in its report.
International pressure has increased on supporters of this conflict to disengage.
The fighting has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 14 million people forced from their homes and 28 million facing acute hunger, according to aid agencies.
Additional reporting by Kaleb Moges