Dec. 6 (UPI) — Rapid Support Forces militia reportedly killed more than 100 civilians in the Sudanese city of Kalogi while also concealing tens of thousands of civilian deaths in El Fasher.
RSF forces killed 114 in Kalogi in Kordofan, including 46 children, in drone strikes on Thursday, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry announced.
The attacks are “part of an ongoing campaign of genocide carried out by the terrorist Rapid Support Forces militia against Sudanese communities,” the Foreign Ministry said.
It said an initial attack in Kalogi in South Kordofan “targeted a kindergarten with rockets launched from a drone with the aim of killing a large number of children.”
The RSF launched another strike against the kindergarten when local residents rushed into the kindergarten after the first strike, which killed more people and children.
RSF members also “chased victims and medics” from a local hospital and targeted a government building with rockets, raising the death toll to 114.
“Killing children in their school is a horrific violation of children’s rights,” UNICEF representative Sheldon Yett said in a statement on Friday.
“Children should never pay the price of conflict,” Yett said, adding that all parties immediately should stop the attacks and “allow safe, unhindered access for humanitarian assistance to reach those in desperate need.”
The call for humanitarian assistance followed an attack on a U.N. World Food Programme truck that was part of a 39-truck convoy delivering humanitarian assistance in North Darfur.
“It is truly shocking to see history repeating itself in Kordofan so soon after the horrific events in El Fasher,” said Volker Turk, U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner, as reported by The New York Times.
“We must not allow Kordofan to become another El Fasher,” Turk added.
The RSF took control of El Fasher in North Darfur six weeks ago after a lengthy siege that was followed by systematic killings of local civilians.
El Fasher now “resembles a ‘massive crime scene’ with large piles of bodies heaped throughout its streets,” The Guardian reported on Friday.
RSF forces are destroying evidence of a civilian massacre by piling up dead bodies in many locations and either burying them in mass graves or cremating them, according to satellite images.
The city is closed off to even U.N. war crimes investigators, leaving satellites as the only sources of evidence of the atrocities.
Current estimates say 60,000 civilians have died in El Fasher, and 150,000 are missing.
The RSF and Sudanese government have been engaged in a civil war for the past two years, in which the RSF has made significant gains in recent months.
Up to 400,000 have died because of the war, which has forced about 12 million from their homes and created a widespread humanitarian crisis.
