DUBAI/CAIRO (Reuters) – Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized back control of a key logistical base in North Darfur on Sunday, the paramilitary group said, a day after it was taken by rival forces allied with Sudan’s army.
The conflict between the RSF and the army erupted in April 2023, and some of the fiercest fighting has taken place in North Darfur as the army and allied Joint Forces – a collection of former rebel groups – battle to maintain a last foothold in the wider Darfur region.
The Joint Forces and the army said in statements they had taken control on Saturday of the al-Zurug base, which the RSF has used during the 20-month war as a logistical base to channel supplies from over the nearby borders with Chad and Libya.
Dozens of RSF soldiers were killed, vehicles destroyed and supplies captured as they captured the base, they said.
The incident could inflame ethnic tensions between the Arab tribes that form the base of the RSF and the Zaghawa tribe that forms most of the Joint Forces, analysts say.
The RSF accused Joint Forces fighters of killing civilians and burning down nearby homes and public amenities during the raid.
“The Joint Forces carried out ethnic cleansing against innocent civilians in al-Zurug and intentionally killed children, women, and the elderly and burnt and destroyed wells and markets and homes and the health centre and schools,” it said in a statement on Sunday.
The Joint Forces said the base had been used by the RSF as a “launching point for barbaric operations against civilians” in areas including al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur state and one of the most active frontlines in the fighting.
Since fighting picked up in al-Fashir in mid-April, at least 782 civilians have been killed, according to a U.N. human rights report, the result of attacks via “intense” heavy artillery and suicide drones from the RSF and airstrikes and artillery strikes by the army.
On Sunday, activists from the al-Fashir Resistance Committee reported an onslaught of at least 30 missiles fired on different parts of the city.
Seizing control of the city would bolster the RSF’s attempt to install a parallel government to the national government in Port Sudan, analysts say.
(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz and Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Helen Popper)
