Governor of West Darfur Killed: Sudanese Crisis Escalates

In his last appearance on the “Al-Hadath” screen, prior to his arrest and killing, the governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abkar, confirmed that the killing of Sudanese in the region is carried out indiscriminately, adding, “We live in a bitter reality that has no equal.”

Kidnapping and killing

And the Sudanese army announced, at dawn on Thursday, that the Rapid Support Forces had kidnapped and killed the governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abdullah Abkar, and then killed him, considering that his liquidation was a “brutal act added to its record of crimes.”

For his part, the head of the Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, condemned the killing of the governor of West Darfur, accusing the Rapid Support Forces of being behind the operation.

“The dead man had nothing to do with the conflict.”

He said in a statement that the Rapid Support Forces target civilian facilities in the city of El Geneina, stressing that “the governor of West Darfur has nothing to do with the course of the conflict between us and the Rapid Support Forces.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Musa Daoud, the director of information in the Darfur regional government, said that the death toll in the city of El Geneina, in the state of West Darfur, had reached more than a thousand people, indicating that the dead belonged to the two warring parties in the city, namely the Masalit tribe supported by the Rapid Support Forces, and groups of Arab tribes in the region.

Fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces suddenly broke out in mid-April, while the military and civilian parties were finalizing an internationally backed political process that was supposed to end with elections within two years.

However, the two sides had disagreed about plans to integrate the RSF into the army.

Truce does not hold

The two sides agreed to more than one armistice during the ongoing battles between them for nearly two months, the last of which was under Saudi-American sponsorship. But they exchange accusations of violating it repeatedly.

On the other hand, the Rapid Support Forces accused the Sudanese army, on Wednesday, of seeking to ignite a tribal war in the Darfur region, by involving the components of the region in confrontations of a tribal nature.

“after my race”

And on Tuesday, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, expressed his deep concern about the situation in the Darfur region, and the acts of violence, which he said were taking on an “increasing ethnic dimension.”

Last week, the governor of the Darfur region, Minni Arko Minawi, declared the region a disaster area, and said last Saturday that what is happening in the cities of El Geneina and Kutum “cannot pass without an international investigation.”

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