MILITIAS TAKE CITIES IN DARFUR FROM ARMY

Sudanese paramilitaries and allied militias have seized control of cities in the western region of Darfur from the government army, with mass killings reported in one regional capital and at a camp for displaced families, eyewitnesses said.

The capture of the cities, previously divided between the militias and the army, is the most significant military breakthrough by the Rapid Support Forces since the war began seven months ago, and threatens to usher in a new chapter of violence by drawing in forces that have previously kept aloof from the fighting.

Three of the five regional capitals have fallen in quick succession over the past two weeks: Nyala, Geneina and Zalingei. Major military bases have also been captured or deserted, with soldiers fleeing across the border into Chad.

Ahmed Sharif, 31, said Wednesday he had personally collected 102 bodies and laid tents over them after an attack over the weekend on Ardamata, a satellite settlement of Geneina that has an army base and a large camp for displaced families. The road to the border was strewn with dozens more bodies, he said, and leaders from the camp who had fled to Chad had collected the names of hundreds more people reported dead by family members and witnesses.

The civil war in the nation of 50 million people erupted April 15 between the RSF, headed by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, universally known as Hemedti, and the military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The two men had cooperated to overthrow a government led by a civilian prime minister but then turned on each other.

The military has repeatedly bombed civilian neighborhoods, and the RSF, which is allied with several ethnically Arab militias, has been blamed for multiple attacks on hospitals and mass killings, as well as ethnically motivated attacks in the western region of Darfur. So far 6 million people in Sudan have fled their homes and half of the population needs urgent aid.

The United Nations and medical charity Doctors Without Borders have raised the alarm over reports of atrocities.

Stephanie Hoffmann, a coordinator with Doctors Without Borders in Adré, a Chadian city on the border with Sudan, said more than 7,000 people had crossed the border in the first three days of November, more than the entire previous month.