1,200 killed, around 120,000 displaced as violence spirals in Darfur’s Geneina

A two-week flare of violence between armed tribal militias and local residential groups has seared through West Darfur leaving its capital, Geneina, burned out and bereft of services.

Around 700 people are thought to have been killed during the 14 days of fighting in the city, while former inhabitants are now scattered through the northwestern Sudanese state, with up to 120,000 of them crowding at border areas of neighboring Chad where Chadian authorities have entered Darfur to create a buffer zone for the arrival of people fleeing Geneina in terror.

The June clashes, which follow military grappling in the region of Darfur between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces militia since the outbreak of Sudan’s war in April, bring the city’s estimated total death toll to over 1,200 since mid-May, according to statements from the Darfur Regional Authority and the Red Crescent.

Members of local government, residents still in Geneina and others who have fled 23 kilometers to Chad described the events of the early weeks of June to Mada Masr.

The city was still burning on Monday, with columns of smoke rising from abandoned homes. Banks, governmental and utility establishments and market stores lay looted and closed, one resident of the city told Mada Masr. Ethnically Arab militiamen aligned with the RSF have taken over water stations and wells in Geineina, restricting access for residents, one of the refugees who fled to Adre town in Chad said.

Geneina lies 1,200 kilometers from Khartoum in the far west of Sudan, just 23 km from the Chadian border. Many of Geneina’s 200,000 inhabitants belong to the ethnically Arab Rizeigat tribe, to which many Rapid Support Forces personnel belong, who mainly reside in the city’s north.

The southern part of the city where governmental, utilities and historical buildings are located, is also home to lots of the Masalit tribe, considered African in origin, which considers Geneina its capital.

As clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces surged in April into the war that continues to rage through Sudan, Darfur was also affected. Military clashes between the Sudanese army and RSF reverberated between the local groups, some thought to be armed and supported by the RSF. 

Geneina, the state’s capital, has been cut off from the rest of the world due to network outages since May 11. With civilians repeatedly exposed to the crossfire and subjected to targeted attacks, the Darfur regional governor and head of the Sudanese Liberation Army rebel group Minni Arko Minnawi called on local residents groups to take up arms on May 28.

The fighting is the most violent in the city’s history, said Al-Zahawy Idris, a social activist in Geneina, even though the region was wracked by civil war for 20 years until the 2020 Juba Agreement established a peace deal. Idris described bodies left on roadsides for days, means of communication cut off, and a scarcity of medical equipment and capacity available in hospitals. “All kidney dialysis patients have died,” said a press release from the medical division of the Justice and Equality opposition movement.

On June 1, a source in the Sudanese Red Crescent previously told Mada Masr, over 500 people had been killed since May 11. Both the Red Crescent and the Darfur Regional Government said that casualties have now reached 1,200, but noted that they have been unable to count all the victims accurately since all medical centers and hospitals are out of service The situation is catastrophic, the Sudanese medical syndicate said.

Another 5,000 deaths are anticipated over the coming weeks, said medics working in the area, while the medical committee of the Justice and Equality Movement rebel group in Darfur mentioned in a press release that all the city’s kidney dialysis patients had passed away due to the impact on medical services. Systematic killings have been carried out, said a security source from the Darfur Regional Authority speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, describing the increase in casualties as proof that militiamen with military arms were involved in the spate of violence. Minnawi has made demands that international observers investigate incidents in both Geneina and Kutum in North Darfur, where tribal clashes have also taken place.

Among a set of apparently targeted assassinations was the brother of the head of the Masalit, Tarek Abdel Rahman Saad Eddinin, said sources from Geneina. Saad Eddin, killed around June 12, was an important local leader in the tribe and in the whole Darfuri region.

West Darfur Governor Khamis Abkar was taken by a group of militiamen affiliated with the RSF two hours after making a statement to Al-Hadath news channel, said a press source from the West Darfur governor’s office speaking to Mada Masr from outside the state. 

Abakar led the Sudanese National Alliance that signed the Juba Peace Agreement in 2020, before he was sworn into office as the governor of West Darfur in the beginning of 2021.

After his kidnap, a video of Abkar circulated, in which he, dressed in a helmet and a bullet-proof vest emblazoned with a United Nations logo, and his personal assistant were being pushed into a room. He was surrounded by a group of armed men trying to attack him while shouting, “Khamis Kandam, Khamis Kandam, this is him.” Images of his body were published on social media on Wednesday June 14, brutally mutilated

Describing the killing as a “treacherous act by the rebel RSF,” Sudanese Armed Forces General Abdel Fattah Burhan issued a statement condemning the governor’s murder.

The RSF, meanwhile, issued a statement mourning the death of the governor, saying that the murder was executed by the hands "tribal fighters sowing chaos," and accused army intelligence of being involved in fueling clashes and tribal fighting. 

Amid the horror wracking Geneina, many have fled their homes in the city. The route to doing so is not safe. Checkpoints set up by militiamen wearing RSF attire have spread outside the city, said Ibrahim Gomaa, a resident of a southern Geneina neighborhood, who told Mada Masr that he managed to get his family out of the city on June 9. People passing by the checkpoints have been robbed, assaulted and even killed citizens, he said.

“You! Where are you going? Stop right there. You, the guy walking there, come here. Do you have anything?” said a young man moving between people fleeing the city in one of several videos filmed via mobile and published online showing RSF-affiliated militiamen stopping fleeing citizens along the roads leading to the border with Chad, threatening to kill them as they search and confiscate their personal belongings.

One of the displaced people who reached a refugee camp in Adre, Chad told Mada Masr that citizens are still flocking to the borders, while as many as 650 people with injuries sustained from gunfire have arrived and are being treated in medical camps. The source added that at least six of the wounded died of injuries. 

Personnel belonging to the Chadian army are posted along the Chad-Sudan borders, receiving refugees. Chadian forces have passed around two kilometers into Sudanese territory, according to a military source who spoke to Mada Masr, who said the buffer zone is intended to protect displaced citizens and provide medical care for the wounded. 

Around 100,000 people have reached Chad thus far, according to Chadian media, which published pictures and videos of Chadian President Mohamed Idriss Deby visiting refugee camps in Adre. 

Around 120,000 people have reached Chad thus far, according to Amnesty International. Chadian media published pictures and videos of Chadian President Mohamed Idriss Deby visiting refugee camps in Adre. 

Tribal fighting has broken out on several occasions in Geneina since the Juba Agreement. In 2021, tribal clashes broke out, and the army intervened to separate the warring parties. The Rizaygat and Masalit also clashed in February, 2022, a flare-up in fighting that left 201 people dead and more than 10,000 displaced.