Sudan Massacre Video Reveals Ethnically Motivated RSF Atrocities

ADF STAFF

Militiamen waved their weapons in the air and chanted triumphantly over the lifeless bodies of five young men, all brothers, at the Kassab displacement camp near Kutumin Kassab, in western Sudan.

Described by a local farmer as hard-working, the Suleiman brothers included a 14-year-old student, two tailors and one cattle herder. They were members of the Zaghawa ethnic group, not involved in the country’s ongoing civil war and staying with their mother when the attack occurred.

“I saw a young man, about 16 years old, force the door of their house and enter, with a number of soldiers behind him, calling them ‘slave Nubians,’” said a witness who spoke anonymously in a report co-published by LeMonde, Lighthouse Reports, Sky News and The Washington Post.

Another witness said they saw the Suleimans’ mother pleading with the militiamen not to kill her sons. The Washington Post reported that a militiaman then struck her on the head with a rifle butt.

The Suleimans were among an estimated 73 people killed during the June 2023 massacre at the displacement camp and Kutum . Survivors say the assault was ethnically motivated.

Video footage obtained in the joint investigation appears to back those claims. One video showed a fighter in a white turban standing over two dead bodies.

“Take pictures!” the militiaman said in a Washington Post report. “This is a victory for the Arabs! This is a victory for the Arabs!”

About 70% of Sudanese identify as Arab, while the rest are primarily from groups such as the Beja, Fallata, Fur, Nubian and Zaghawa. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has vied for control of the country with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since April 2023. Both sides are accused of committing atrocities against civilians.

Other images from the joint investigation show militia members taunting dying victims. Witnesses and RSF propaganda videos revealed that senior RSF commanders were in Kutum, about 120 kilometers from al-Fasher in North Darfur State, during the massacre.

Just before the attack on the Kassab camp, local tensions spiked after an Arab RSF officer was killed, an RSF base looted and some Arab businesses attacked, according to The Washington Post. The massacre unfolded five days later.

A woman named Huwaida brushed tears from her cheeks as she recalled last year’s attack on Kutum that killed at least 73 people. “My 13-year-old daughter is still missing since the day we fled,” Huwaida said in a Sky News video. “I’ve no mother, no brother. I can’t find anyone.”

Another survivor said the RSF looted homes and tortured men.

“They never entered Arab houses in the neighborhood,” the man said. “They only go to the houses of Black people, break in and take.”

Another witness said her neighbor was attacked by the RSF as he got water from a well.

“We woke up to the sound of bullets, lots of bullets,” she said. “Suddenly, the Arabs entered the town and started killing people in the streets. They entered homes, killing and raping people.”

A local activist told The Washington Post that the displaced people in Kassab tried to flee, but gunfire from hundreds of uniformed RSF fighters and militiamen on motorbikes and in trucks was too intense.

The violence evoked memories of the 2003 Darfur genocide when rebel groups attacked the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups. The fighting that ensued killed an estimated 200,000 people between 2003 and 2005.

Survivors of the June 2023 massacre said some SAF members fled the area ahead of the assault.

“This time, these guys conquer the Army, then come for the civilians,” a man named Yousif said in the Sky News video. “If you have a car, they’ll take it. They’ll take anything you have in your home. If you have pretty sisters, they’ll rape them.”