GENEVA: More than 400 people have been killed in recent attacks by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the western Darfur region, according to sources cited by the United Nations.
The RSF, at war with the regular army since April 2023, has in recent weeks stepped up its attacks on refugee camps around El-Fasher in its effort to seize the last state capital in Darfur not under its control.
And since late last week, the RSF has launched ground and aerial assaults on El-Fasher itself and the nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps.
Just between Thursday and Saturday last week, the UN rights office “has verified 148 killings,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP.
“But this is very much an underestimate as our verification work is ongoing,” she said, stressing that the number did “not even include yesterday’s violence.”
“Credible sources have reported more than 400 killed,” she said.
Her comments came after UN rights chief Volker Turk decried in a statement that the “large-scale attacks ... made starkly clear the cost of inaction by the international community, despite my repeated warnings of heightened risk for civilians in the area.”
“Hundreds of civilians, including at least nine humanitarian workers, were reportedly killed,” he said, warning that “the attacks have exacerbated an already dire protection and humanitarian crisis in a city that has endured a devastating RSF siege since May last year.”
The UN rights chief insisted that “RSF has an obligation under international humanitarian law to ensure the protection of civilians, including from ethnically motivated attacks, and to enable the safe passage of civilians out of the city.”
With the conflict entering its third year on Tuesday, Turk called on all parties “to take meaningful steps toward resolving the conflict.”

CAIRO: Syrian leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa and visiting Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam discussed land and sea border demarcation and security coordination on Monday, weeks after the two countries agreed on a ceasefire that ended cross-border clashes.
“This visit will open a new page in the course of relations between the two countries on the basis of mutual respect and restoration of trust and good neighborliness,” Salam said in a statement released by his office.

The mountainous frontier has been a flashpoint in the months since militants toppled Syria’s Bashar Assad, an ally of Tehran and Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, and installed their own institutions and army.

The latest round of clashes was in March when Syrian troops exchanged fire with Lebanese soldiers and armed groups in northeast Lebanon. Syria accused Hezbollah of crossing into Syrian territory and kidnapping and killing three members of Syria’s army.
Hezbollah, however, denied any involvement. A Lebanese security source told Reuters the three Syrian soldiers had crossed into Lebanon first and were killed by armed members of a tribe who feared their town was under attack.
The two countries’ delegations also discussed the fate of missing and detained Lebanese people in Syria, an issue that came under the spotlight after the toppling of Assad, which led to the opening of prisons and the discovery of collective graves in Syria.
Lebanon says more than 700 Lebanese were detained in Syrian prisons due to the Syrian influence in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war from 1975 to 1990.
For much of the Assad family’s five decades in power, Syria held significant influence over Lebanon, maintaining a military presence there for 29 years until 2005 despite widespread opposition from many Lebanese.
The Lebanese and Syrian leaders also agreed to cooperate in the economic field and agreed on creating a ministerial committee to follow up with issues of common interest, the Lebanese prime minister’s office said.