Sudan crisis: Residents in total panic, accuse paramilitaries of looting

Residents in Sudan are lamenting that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have looted everything in their villages as they move South.

Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the paramilitaries as they push southwards, the villagers of al-Jazira say they hold their breath every time they hear the roar of a car or motorbike engine, so fearful are they of the dreaded RSF paramilitaries.

The bloody war that has pitted the Sudanese army against the RSF paramilitaries in Khartoum for the past eight months has forced half a million people to seek refuge further south, in this agricultural state that was until recently spared the violence.

It has also displaced 7.1 million people, including 1.5 million in neighbouring countries, said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, on Thursday, describing it as “the world’s largest displacement crisis”.

Recently, however, the paramilitaries, who control most of the capital, have been advancing along the motorway linking the capital to Wad Madani, taking village after village and terrorising its inhabitants.

The United Nations Security Council has expressed “concern” at the intensification of violence in Sudan, while “strongly condemning” attacks against civilians and the extension of the conflict “to areas hosting large populations of displaced persons”.