At least 124 people have been killed in a single attack by Sudanese paramilitaries who have besieged and raided villages in al-Jazira state, activists said.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been at war with Sudan's regular army since April 2023 but have in recent days intensified their violence against civilians in al-Jazira, south of the capital Khartoum, after their commander in the state Abuegla Keikal defected to the army.
Al-Sireha village, in the north of the state, experienced the worst of the recent violence when at least 124 were killed and 100 injured in the RSF raid, the Wad Madani Resistance Committee, a pro-democracy group, said on Saturday.
In a statement on Friday, the RSF accused the army of arming civilians in Gezira and of using forces under Keikal's command, prompting its attacks.
"The villages of al-Sariha and Azraq have been under attack" since Friday morning, the resistance committee in Hasaheisa, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid in Sudan, said in a statement to AFP late on Friday.
In al-Sariha alone, the attack killed 50 and wounded more than 200, the resistance committee added, reporting a total "inability to evacuate the wounded from the village due to the shelling and snipers" from the RSF.
"The RSF militia is raiding east, west, and central Gezira, and committing extensive massacres in one village after another," the committee said.
Images on social media shared by the committee and others purported to show dozens of bodies wrapped for burial and mass graves being dug.
"The people of al-Jazira are facing genocide by the Rapid Support Forces and it is impossible to treat the injured or even evacuate them for treatment. Those who have left on foot have died or are faced with death," said the Sudanese Doctors Union, calling for safe passages.
A video circulated on social media purported to show an RSF soldier who said he was in Sireha and who filmed troops lining up men of all ages at gunpoint, using racial epithets, and forcing them to bleat like goats.
Another video, shared by the resistance committee, showed an RSF soldier pulling an elderly man to his feet by his beard.
Reuters could not independently verify the videos.
With a near-total communications blackout, tolls are impossible to verify and often hard to gather.
The resistance committee said that the nearby village of Azraq had been placed under a "total siege, suffering the same violations as al-Sariha", although it was not possible to provide a death toll.
On Friday, the Sudanese doctors' union called on the United Nations to press for safe humanitarian corridors into villages that "are facing genocide at the hands of the Rapid Support militia".
The doctors' union added that rescue operations had become impossible and that "the army is incapable of protecting civilians".
According to medical sources in several villages, nearly all health facilities capable of receiving emergency cases have been forced shut.
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, with some estimates of 150,000 dead.
It has also caused what the UN calls the world's largest displacement crisis, with more than seven million uprooted.
In June, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the UN, said Sudan is the planet's "largest humanitarian crisis".
Famine was declared in July in the Zamzam camp for displaced people near the town of El-Fasher, in Sudan's western Darfur region bordering Chad.
Last Sunday the army announced that the RSF's al-Jazira commander Abu Aqla Kaykal had abandoned the paramilitaries, bringing "a large number of his forces" with him, in what it said was the first high-profile defection to its side.
Activists reported at least 20 people killed in subsequent paramilitary attacks in eastern al-Jazira. They also said an air strike by the Sudanese Armed forces on a mosque in the state capital, Wad Madani, killed 31 people.
On Thursday, neighbouring Chad denied helping to arm the paramilitaries after the governor of Sudan's Darfur region, Minni Minnawi, accused them of doing so.
"Chad has no interest in amplifying the war in Sudan," said Chadian Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah, pointing out that Chad was "one of the rare countries upon which this war has had major repercussions".
Sudanese authorities have previously charged that Chad was facilitating the delivery of weapons from the United Arab Emirates to Sudan, which both Chad and the UAE have denied.
The International Monetary Fund's director for Africa, Catherine Pattillo, told AFP this week that the war in Sudan was likely to cause heavy economic damage to its already struggling neighbours.
"And then to be confronted with the refugees, the security issues, the trade issues, is very challenging for their growth," she said.