Sudan's Rapid Support Forces said on Thursday it had shot down an army aircraft in Darfur, as the paramilitary's second-in-command threatened to attack a region north of the capital that has so far been untouched by nearly two years of fighting in Africa's third-largest country.
A statement by the RSF identified the aircraft as a Russian-made Antonov transport plane, which it said was being used to drop “explosive barrels” as a means of bombardment used since the 1980s by the Sudanese Armed Forces against rebels in the south and west of the vast Afro-Arab nation.
Videos shared online purported to show the smouldering wreckage of a plane as paramilitary members celebrated nearby. There was no word from the army on the loss of the aircraft. However, the Sudanese Armed Forces rarely acknowledge material or human losses.
The RSF statement claimed the aircraft was targeting civilians when it was shot down near Al Fasher, the only major city in Darfur still controlled by Sudan's army. Al Fasher has been besieged by the RSF since last May.
“The valiant fighters of the Rapid Support Forces are in full alert and preparedness to deal with any aerial attacks that threaten the life of civilians,” the RSF statement read. It said everyone on aboard the plane was killed, without providing a number.
Separately, the RSF's second-in-command, Abdel Raheem Dagalo, has threatened to attack northern Sudan, claiming 2,000 paramilitary fighting vehicles were already on their way there.
If independently verified, the attack would be the first ground operation by the RSF in Sudan's northern region, for decades home to the nation's political and military elites that have dominated successive governments since independence in 1956.
His threat followed unconfirmed reports that missiles fired by the RSF on Thursday were aimed at the airport in Atbara, a city north of the Sudanese capital. There was no word on damage or casualties.
The RSF, which was thrown out of the capital last week by the army, controls most of Darfur and parts of Kordofan south-west of the capital. It is also active in the southern state of Blue Nile. The army, on the other hand, is now in control of the capital, as well as eastern, central and northern Sudan.
“We are coming for you in Shamaliyah [northern] and River Nile states,” said Mr Dagalo, the younger brother of RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo. “We were wrong when we did not know where the battlefield is. Now, we know that it should have always been in Shamaliyah,” he told fighters in a rousing speech in which he also threatened RSF deserters with death.
“Any officer from the Rapid Support Forces who is not leading our fighters in battle within hours will be decommissioned and put on trial,” he said. “Those who are shown to have sold their arms and ammunition will be executed.”
An independent group monitoring the war in Sudan on Thursday said shelling and heavy machinegun fire blamed on the RSF have killed nearly 100 civilians since March 27 in villages south of Khartoum's sister city of Omdurman. Another 70 civilians have been injured, it added.
The group, the Emergency Lawyers, said RSF fighters have also detained fighting-age men in the villages and forced them to haul goods looted from private residences and shops.
Separately, UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was appalled by reports of extrajudicial killings of civilians in Sudan's capital Khartoum last week after its recapture by the army from the RSF.
“I am utterly appalled by the credible reports of numerous incidents of summary executions of civilians in several areas of Khartoum, on apparent suspicions that they were collaborating with the Rapid Support Forces,” Mr Turk said.
“I urge the commanders of the Sudanese Armed Forces to take immediate measures to put an end to arbitrary deprivation of life. His office, he continued, had been reviewing “horrific videos” on social media since March 26, apparently showing armed men “executing civilians in cold blood” in southern and eastern Khartoum.
The army and the RSF face accusations of committing war crimes by international rights groups. Both Gen Dagalo and army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan were sanctioned by the US in January for their roles in the war, which enters its third year this month.
Since its outbreak on April 15, 2023, the civil war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands, displaced more than 12 million people and devastated the nation's already fragile economy and infrastructure.
Moreover, the fighting has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, leaving an estimated 25 million people – about half the population – facing acute hunger. Pockets of famine have also emerged in Sudan.
Al Shafie Ahmed reported from Kampala, Uganda
