The discovery of a mass grave containing 87 people n Sudan’s Darfur region is yet another atrocity in a brutal, three-month-long conflict in the country and an echo of infamous horrors of Sudan’s recent past.
Just two years ago, Sudan seemed a tentative success story after years of conflict, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and a decades-long dictatorship. But since April, conflict between the nation’s military and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group has essentially halted Sudan’s hopes for a democratic future, created a humanitarian crisis, and threatened fragile regional stability. A series of ceasefires have failed to contain the violence, which began with rival military leaders battling for control after ousting the civilian transitional prime minister — offering little hope for an end to the brutality.
United Nations investigators announced the existence of the mass grave on Thursday, on the eve of a mediation effort hosted by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Sisi and other regional leaders have convened in Cairo in an effort to keep the conflict in Sudan from spreading and further destabilizing the neighboring countries.
The bodies in the grave include members of a non-Arab-speaking ethnic group called the Masalit, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as others allegedly killed by the RSF forces and allied militia in the region over eight days in June. The dead include seven women and seven children, as well as people who died because they were unable to seek medical treatment for injuries sustained in the violence.
“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,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement Thursday.
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