KHARTOUM, Sudan / ISTANBUL

More than 600 people fled two villages in South Kordofan due to worsening insecurity, the UN migration agency said Monday, as local groups accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of attacking the area.

A statement by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that its field teams estimated that 645 Sudanese were displaced from Tebsa and Afnori in Abbasiya Tagali locality on Nov. 22, citing a rapid deterioration in security conditions.

The displaced families have reached multiple sites across Abbasiya, while the situation on the ground remains “highly tense and volatile,” the statement added.

Two local groups, the Nuba Mountains Platform and the Tebsa Youth Gathering, accused RSF forces and the allied Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) of besieging Tebsa for several hours, storming its market, looting property, and killing one resident and injuring another.

They also said that RSF fighters had detained about 700 young men from across the village and transported them to an SPLM-N camp as part of what it described as forced military conscription.

Neither the RSF nor the SPLM-N commented on the accusations.

For days, heavy clashes have erupted across the three states of the Kordofan region – North, West and South – displacing tens of thousands of civilians.

Last month, the RSF seized El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and was accused of massacres. The group now controls all five Darfur states, out of Sudan’s 18 states, while the army holds most of the remaining 13 states, including Khartoum.

Darfur makes up about one-fifth of Sudan’s territory, but most of the country’s 50 million people live in army-held areas.

The conflict in Sudan between the army and the RSF, which began in April 2023, has killed at least 40,000 people and displaced 12 million, according to the World Health Organization.