2/19/2025 Sudan (International Christian Concern) — In what may be its largest act of violence since 2023, Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces militia is reported to have murdered 433 people, including infants, in the southeast Sudanese state of White Nile. The series of attacks, which took place in the state’s Qetina area, targeted several small villages and towns.
Even as news of the attacks spread in the news and on local social media channels, key RSF leadership gathered in nearby Nairobi, Kenya, for a lavish event announcing the formation of a nascent breakaway government designed to challenge the authority of its main rival, the Sudanese Armed Forces.
The current conflict, born out of fighting between the Sudanese military and the RSF, has led to one the largest humanitarian crises in the world since igniting in 2023.
Both parties in the conflict have been credibly accused of mass atrocities against civilians, including attacks on churches and against religious leaders. However, the RSF has garnered particular scrutiny for its attacks on civilians, which parallel those committed by an earlier iteration of the group during the Darfur Genocide.
Just last month, the United States declared that the RSF was again engaged in a genocide. “The R.S.F. and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys — even infants — on an ethnic basis,” then Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, “and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence.”
The brutal fighting has killed about 24,000 people since 2023 and displaced more than 12.5 million of Sudan’s 48 million residents, according to U.N. estimates.
According to reports, 165 churches have had to close since the war started in 2023. Some churches are used as bases for military operations in the war, with people sheltering there forced out or even killed to make way for soldiers. Members of the clergy have been targeted, with soldiers shooting or stabbing priests and others during their raids. The well-equipped SAF often bombs churches, indiscriminately injuring or killing those sheltering inside, including women and children.
Both sides of the conflict have been responsible for immense human suffering and have acted in ways that directly kill, harm, and displace civilians. Afraid of losing leverage or battlefield advantage, both sides have also blocked humanitarian assistance from reaching those in need. Speaking to this issue, the White House last year called on both parties to “immediately allow unhindered humanitarian access to all areas of Sudan” and reverse their decisions to “delay and disrupt lifesaving humanitarian operations.”
In recent weeks, freezes of U.S.-funded aid in Sudan have closed hundreds of aid distribution points, leaving tens of thousands of Sudanese civilians without food and medicine as famine conditions threaten the country and the fighting continues.
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