Conflicting accounts have emerged over the execution of a group of detainees in North Kordofan’s Umm Badr area, with a Sudanese medical group describing the victims as civilians while sources within the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) say they were members of the force accused of looting and murder.
The Sudan Doctors Network said on Saturday that more than 25 civilians had been executed by RSF personnel in Umm Badr, citing video footage circulating online.
The network said there were indications the killings may have been ethnically motivated and that the victims had been accused of supporting Sudan’s military. It called for an independent international investigation into the incident.
However, local Sudanese media reported a substantially different account after speaking to three RSF sources.
The sources said those executed were RSF soldiers who had arrived from Nyala and were accused of looting Umm Badr market and killing four traders and money dealers.
According to the report, protests by local residents prompted RSF commander Brigadier Ali al-Balla to order commanders to hand over the accused personnel. The men were then subjected to what one source described as a “field trial” before being shot dead.
Two other RSF sources said the executions took place at Jebel Umm Badr, north of the town, in the presence of military police and on al-Balla’s orders. They said the bodies were subsequently buried in a mass grave near the execution site.
Video footage reviewed by Sudanese media shows detainees lying on the ground before gunfire is heard. One Sudanese outlet said it verified that the incident occurred in Umm Badr and identified the man appearing in the footage as al-Balla, an RSF field commander. In the recording, al-Balla refers to 23 detainees, although the final death toll has not been independently established.
Another RSF field commander, Jaabiz al-Salami, subsequently criticised the killings and called on al-Balla to surrender to judicial authorities, saying the accusations against the detainees should have been handled through the courts.
The Sudan Founding Alliance, TASIS, meanwhile issued a separate statement on October 2 accusing the Sudanese army and allied forces of executing more than 23 people in Sodiri after taking control of the town.
TASIS described those victims as civilians accused of looting markets. However, subsequent examination of the circulating execution footage by Sudanese media placed the filmed incident in Umm Badr rather than Sodiri, leaving questions over whether the TASIS statement referred to the same incident or a separate event.
