ISTANBUL

Hundreds of civilians were buried in mass graves and others burned by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in El-Fasher city in western Sudan, local medics said Sunday.

“The RSF has collected hundreds of bodies from the streets and the city’s neighborhoods and buried some in mass graves and burnt others in a desperate attempt to conceal evidence of their crimes against civilians,” the Sudan Doctors Network said in a statement.

It called the burying of civilians a “full-fledged genocide” and a “violation of all international and religious norms that prohibit the mutilation of corpses and guarantee the dead the right to a dignified burial.”

“The situation in El-Fasher has gone beyond a humanitarian catastrophe to become a systematic genocide, targeting human life and dignity amid an appalling international silence that amounts to complicity,” the statement said.

“The RSF crimes cannot be erased by burying or burning,” the medical group said, calling on the international community to take immediate action to launch an independent international investigation into atrocities against civilians in El-Fasher.

On Oct. 26, the RSF seized control of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and committed ethnic-based massacres, according to local and international organizations, amid warnings that the assault could entrench the country’s geographical partition.

Since April 15, 2023, the Sudanese army and the RSF have been locked in a war that regional and international mediations have failed to end. The conflict has killed thousands of people and displaced millions of others.