Two members of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were shot dead at a livestock market north of Nyala last week in what local sources described as a targeted attack linked to an earlier dispute over war spoils.
Eyewitnesses told Darfur24 that four armed men travelling in a four-wheel-drive vehicle arrived at a restaurant in the livestock market and opened fire on the two RSF members, who were sitting outside.
The attackers then fled east towards a road leading to Nyala’s new industrial area, witnesses said. The two victims were left severely wounded and later died from their injuries.
Witnesses said that after the men died, several people searched their bodies and stole cash, mobile phones, weapons and ammunition before military police and relatives of the victims arrived at the scene around half an hour later.
Local sources told Darfur24 that people close to the two men had previously warned them against travelling to the market alone because of an unresolved dispute with other individuals over war spoils.
The dispute was said to date back to the period after the RSF captured parts of the capital, Khartoum, and had already resulted in the death of another person, according to the sources.
Despite the warnings, the two men travelled to the market in a military vehicle to eat lunch before they were attacked.
Darfur24 cited separate sources as saying authorities had arrested one person suspected of involvement in the killings.
The incident comes amid a series of killings involving RSF personnel in and around Nyala during August and September.
In August, the driver of the father of RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo was killed inside a house in Nyala’s Al-Riyadh neighbourhood. Another RSF soldier, identified as Al-Adwani, was also killed after being repeatedly stabbed in the town of Tulus, south of Nyala.
The RSF leadership has not publicly commented on the incidents, according to Darfur24.
