EU ‘appalled’ by reports 1,000 killed in Darfur

BRUSSELS: The EU said on Sunday it was “appalled” by reports of more than 1,000 people killed this month in Sudan´s West Darfur in an apparent “ethnic cleansing campaign”by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

“These latest atrocities are seemingly part of a wider ethnic cleansing campaign conducted by the RSF with the aim to eradicate the non-Arab Masalit community from West Darfur, and comes on top of the first wave of large violence in June,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

Since April, forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan -- Sudan´s de facto head of state -- have been at war with the RSF commanded by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

The European Union statement said there were “credible eyewitness reports (that) more than a thousand members of the Masalit community were killed in Ardamta, West Darfur, in just over two days, during major attacks carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its affiliated militias”.

The toll was higher than a previous one of 800 given by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), which said 100 shelters in a displaced persons´ camp in Ardamta had been razed. “What is happening is verging on pure evil,” the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said Friday, citing reports of young girls being raped in front of their mothers.