Videos lift veil on hidden horrors in Sudan after ‘100 villagers massacred’

October 27, 2024

Bodies wrapped in blankets are laid out in a front yard. Some on beds, others on the hard ground.

“These are the martyrs of Al Sireiha – more than 100,” the man recording the video says, as mourners pray and walk around the corpses in the poorly lit evening darkness.

Civilians were massacred in the farming village of Al Sireiha in the eastern parts of Sudan’s Al Jazira state on Friday.

The horror has emerged in a handful of videos uploaded to social media amid a telecommunications blackout.

“The number of deaths we’ve received so far is 124, though due to communication outages, we haven’t been able to confirm this or if it has risen,” says Mohamed Tarek.

He is a member of the Madani Resistance Committee, the state capital’s branch in a network of grassroots, frontline volunteer groups born out of Sudan’s 2019 revolution.

Videos showing the brutal humiliation of residents at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Panicked voice notes calling for intervention and medical help have been circulating in the hours since.

“There are also numerous civilian injuries with no way to provide medical assistance as there are no medical staff or equipped hospitals available,” says Mohamed.

A daytime video shows RSF militiamen announcing their entry into Al Sireiha – geolocated to the site of the village by Sudan OSINT expert Faisal El-Sheikh. They claim that the army forces in the area fled.

It is widely reported that there was no concentration of army forces in the area when the attack took place.

This massacre is part of a series of RSF attacks on villages in the state following the defection of the most senior RSF commander in Al Jazira, Abu Aqla Keikal, to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

The RSF and SAF have been battling for territorial control of the country since April 2023.

A video shared on Thursday shows another mass funeral of 14 civilians in the village of Safeita just days after Keikal’s public defection and pardon for the atrocities committed under his command.

Now, Keikal’s name is being used to torment civilians in Al Jazira’s villages.

“Look, Keikal! Look at your remnants!” is yelled at men forced to sit at the bottom of a wall. One of the frail men in the video has bloodstains all over his white thobe.

“Did Keikal trick you?” says the man behind the camera. The men look down and shake their heads helplessly.

In another video, filmed by an RSF militiaman on the back of a truck driving through a dirt track between Al Jazira’s farming fields, men fleeing on foot are told to wait for Keikal to pick them up. After being mocked and insulted, they are ordered to bleat like sheep as they escape.

Footage of burning crops reflects another symptom of the atrocities faced by the farming communities in Al Jazira’s villages. October – the celebrated month of harvest – has brought more bloodshed, hunger and displacement.

Mohamed from Madani’s Resistance Committee says eyewitnesses had said that the RSF used mosque speakers to tell residents to evacuate the villages.

The videos shared all show male victims and concern is rising about the fate of the women.

“What is confirmed now is that in a single village [in this attack], 17 women including three nurses were assaulted,” Suilaima Ishaq, the head of Sudan’s Unit of Combating Violence against Women and Children, tells Sky News.

“The numbers may be far higher but due to the lack of services and communications blackout, it is difficult to monitor.

“The RSF uses sexual violence [against women] as a weapon of war to target men and cement their defeat.”

“Since the RSF invaded Al Jazira [last year], the unit has only been able to verify 26 cases of sexual violence. The youngest victim was 6 years old and the oldest was 34. There were four cases of resulting pregnancy.”

In online statements, RSF affiliated accounts deny the group’s involvement in atrocities against civilians and say the assault was on armed combatants.

Additional reporting by Eiad Husham