Sudan war sparks global alarm after hundreds reportedly killed at hospital

World leaders called for renewed talks to halt the war in Sudan, as reports emerged of widespread atrocities in a city recently captured by the paramilitary group fighting the army-backed government.

Since seizing El-Fasher in western Sudan on Sunday, the Rapid Support Forces have been accused of executing hundreds of people, while about 30,000 civilians have fled the famine-hit capital of North Darfur state.

Sudan’s Deputy Commissioner of Humanitarian Aid, Mona Nour Al-Daem, said Wednesday that about 2,000 people have been killed in El-Fasher since the RSF entered the city. The capture after a year-long siege marks a major advance for the group in a civil war that’s raged for more than two and a half years.

Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the RSF, said in a speech on Wednesday he would form an investigation committee to probe what happened.

The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas and its Commissioner for Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib called “on all parties to immediately de-escalate” the violence in El-Fasher, which they said “marks a dangerous turning point in the war and threatens to further worsen the already dire humanitarian situation”.

“Civilians being targeted based on their ethnicity underscore the brutality” of the RSF, they said.