At least 87 members of the Masalit minority group, including women and children, were allegedly killed by Sudanese paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last month and buried in a mass grave in the state of West Darfur, the UN High Commission for Human Rights said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th July, 2023) At least 87 members of the Masalit minority group, including women and children, were allegedly killed by Sudanese paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last month and buried in a mass grave in the state of West Darfur, the UN High Commission for Human Rights said on Thursday.
"The bodies of at least 87 ethnic Masalit and others allegedly killed last month by Rapid Support Forces and their allied militia in West Darfur have been buried in a mass grave outside the region's capital El-Geneina on the orders of the Rapid Support Forces," the commission said in a statement.
The victims included seven women and seven children, the UN body added.
"I condemn in the strongest terms the killing of civilians and hors de combat individuals (soldiers who cannot fight due to injuries), and I am further appalled by the callous and disrespectful way the dead, along with their families and communities, were treated," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Tuerk was quoted in the statement as saying.
He also called for the speediest investigation into killings and noted that those responsible must be brought to justice.
On Tuesday, Sudan's Khartoum State Ministry of Health said at least 34 people had been killed in a shelling of a market in the Sudanese city of Omdurman.
In mid-April, violent clashes broke out between the Sudanese regular military and the RSF, with the epicenter located in the capital, Khartoum. The parties have since introduced a number of temporary nationwide ceasefires, but the conflict has not been settled yet. Hundreds of people have been killed and nearly 3 million have been displaced by the ongoing conflict in Sudan, almost 700,000 of whom have left the country, the United Nations says.
