At least 21 people have been killed and more than 70 others wounded by shelling at a busy market in the city of Sennar, south-eastern Sudan, according to the Sudan Doctors Network.
The union has accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of carrying out the attack, which they have condemned as a “massacre” of civilians.
The shelling occurred a day after Sudan’s military rejected a proposal by UN experts to send in an international force to protect civilians. The conflict, which erupted between the army and the RSF last April, has resulted in thousands of deaths and displaced more than 10 million people, making it one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises.
Despite several rounds of peace talks brokered by Saudi Arabia and the US, the conflict remains unresolved. The RSF controls most of Khartoum, significant parts of Kordofan state, and much of Darfur. The group has been accused of using rape as a weapon of war and targeting the Masalit people and other non-Arab communities in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. The RSF has not succeeded in capturing Sennar city from the army.
In June, the RSF seized most of the wider state of Sennar, a region considered strategically important due to its proximity to Ethiopia and South Sudan and its rich agricultural production.
Both sides in the Sudanese conflict—the army and the RSF—are accused of committing atrocities against civilians. The UN reported last week that “harrowing” discoveries made by its fact-finding mission “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity” by both sides. This was angrily rebuked on Saturday by the foreign ministry loyal to army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, which stated, “The Sudanese government rejects in their entirety the recommendations of the UN mission,” and labelled the UN Human Rights Council as a “political and illegal body.”
The RSF has not commented on the latest developments. Led by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, the RSF emerged from the Janjaweed militia, which was accused of genocide against non-Arab communities in Darfur in 2003. Recently, the RSF has sought to enhance its international profile and legitimacy by participating in peace talks in Switzerland that were snubbed by the army.
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