Sudan death toll tops 2,000 as fighting enters third month

Sudan's war has resulted in more than 2,000 deaths as the conflict between the nation's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces enters its third month.

The death toll is based on the latest figures issued by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project as of June 9.

The country's army, headed by Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, and the RSF, led by his former deputy Gen Mohamed Dagalo, have been locked in fighting since April 15.

The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum, into a war zone, leading to a devastating humanitarian crisis.

The fighting has driven 2.2 million people from their homes, including 528,000 who have fled to neighbouring countries, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

“In our worst expectations, we didn't see this war dragging on for this long,” said Mohamad Othman, one of more than a million civilians who fled heavy fighting in Khartoum.

Everything in “our life has changed”, he told AFP. “We don't know whether we'll be back home or need to start a new life.”

In long-troubled West Darfur state, the violence has claimed the life of Governor Khamis Abekr, hours after he made remarks critical of the paramilitaries in a telephone interview with a Saudi TV channel.

The UN said “compelling eyewitness accounts attribute this act to Arab militias and the RSF”, while the Darfur Lawyers Association condemned the act of “barbarism, brutality and cruelty”.

Gen Al Burhan accused his paramilitary foes of the “treacherous attack”.

The RSF denied responsibility and said it condemned Abekr's “assassination in cold blood”.

Kholood Khair, a Sudan expert at the Khartoum-based think tank Confluence Advisory, said the “heinous assassination” was meant “to silence his highlighting of genocide … in Darfur”.

Meanwhile, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said the situation in Darfur was “rapidly spiralling into a humanitarian calamity”.

“The world cannot allow this to happen. Not again,” he said, describing the reality there as a “living nightmare”.

The US State Department also decried the violence in Darfur, calling it “an ominous reminder” of the bloodshed there 20 years ago that left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

“The United States condemns in the strongest terms the ongoing human rights violations and abuses and horrific violence in Sudan, especially reports of widespread sexual violence and killings based on ethnicity in West Darfur by the RSF and allied militias,” spokesman Matthew Miller said.

The RSF has its origins in the Janjaweed militia that former strongman Omar Al Bashir unleashed on ethnic minorities in the region in 2003, drawing charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mr Miller said up to 1,100 civilians have been killed in West Darfur's capital, El Geneina, alone, while the UN reported that more than 273,000 had been displaced from the region.