Sudan mass grave: In a shocking revelation, the United Nations Human Rights Office traced the bodies of 87 who were allegedly killed last month by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces and their allied militia in West Darfur. According to the statement released by the UNHRC, a large number of people including women and children were killed in an ethnic clash and added they have been buried in a mass grave outside the region’s capital El-Geneina.

Citing its sources, the UN claimed that local people were forced to dispose of the bodies in a mass grave, denying those killed a decent burial in one of the city’s cemeteries. At least 37 bodies were buried on 20 June in the approximately one-metre-deep mass grave in an open area called Al-Turab Al Ahmar (Red Soil), in the Ranga area, about two to four kilometres northwest of the headquarters of the Central Reserve Police in western El-Geneina, sources said. Another 50 bodies were buried at the same site on 21 June. The bodies of seven women and seven children were among those buried.

Violence followed by the killing of the Governor of West Darfur

According to information gathered by the UNHRC, those buried in the mass grave were killed by RSF and their allied militia around 13-21 June in El-Geneina’s Al-Madaress and Al-Jamarek districts and include many victims of the violence that followed the killing of Khamis Abbaker, the Governor of West Darfur, on 14 June, shortly after he was taken into custody by the RSF. 

They also include individuals who died from untreated injuries.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk today called on the RSF and other parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate prompt searches for the dead, their collection and evacuation without distinction, including based on ethnic background – as they are obliged to do under international law. 

“I condemn in the strongest terms the killing of civilians and hors de combat individuals, and I am further appalled by the callous and disrespectful way the dead, along with their families and communities, were treated,” Turk said. “There must be a prompt, thorough and independent investigation into the killings, and those responsible must be held to account.”

This is a breaking story. More details will be added.

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