East Darfur activists condemn RSF militia behaviour in Abu Karinka

The Resistance Committees active in Abu Karinka locality in East Darfur have strongly criticised the violent behaviour of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the area.

According to a press statement of the Abu Karinka Resistance Committees Coordination on Friday, RSF militiamen are wreaking havoc terror in the locality.

The paramilitaries move through residential areas and markets with their vehicles mounted with Dushka machine guns and other heavy weapons and provoke and ridicule the people. They intimidate the residents of the locality by using whips, shave the heads of young men to degrade them, and besiege young women and girls at the markets and in cafes.

“We strongly condemn the brutal and barbaric behaviour of these forces without any legal justification,” the Abu Karinka Resistance Committees Coordination said. “The practices of these forces are incompatible with our values, and the goals and principles of our glorious revolution, in which we calling for freedom, peace, and justice.”

The statement called on the police chief, the commander of Abu Karinka garrison, and the director of Abu Karinka locality to intervene and stop the assaults as soon as possible.

The shaving of heads seems to be common among the RSF militia ‘to educate young people with western-style hair cuts’. Since 2017, Radio Dabanga reported about this phenomenon more than once.

Integrated

The RSF militia, set up by the ousted Al Bashir regime in 2013, was officially integrated into the Sudan Armed Forces in August last year. At the same time however, the militia stays a force unto itself, commanded by ‘Hemeti’, who also is Deputy President of Sudan's Sovereign Council.

The RSF, which grew out of the Janjaweed militiamen who fought for the Sudanese government in Darfur since the war broke out 2003, is widely believed to be responsible for atrocities in Sudan in the past six-seven years. The RSF are also held accountable by many for the violent break-up of the Khartoum sit-in in June 3 last year.

A report by Nouska du Saar published by Radio Dabanga on June 26 shows that Sudan’s largest paramilitary force “carried out nearly 100 attacks against towns, farms, and civilians in North Darfur and Jebel Marra since 2016”.

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