Sudan has seen a significant rise in civilian killings during the first half of this year due to growing ethnic violence, the U.N. human rights office said on Friday. The conflict in Sudan that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and rival paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has seen horrendous levels of violence directed at civilians and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. At least 3,384 civilians were killed between January and June, mostly in Darfur, according to a new report by the Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights. The figure is equivalent to nearly 80% of the civilian casualties in Sudan documented last year. “Every day we are receiving more reports of horrors on the ground,” OHCHR Sudan representative Li Fung told reporters in Geneva. The majority of killings resulted from artillery shelling as well as air and drone strikes in densely populated areas, the OHCHR said. It noted many deaths occurred during the RSF’s offensive on the city of El Fasher as well as the ZamZam and Abu Shouk camps for displaced people in April.

Full report : Ethnically-driven killings in Sudan’s war have jumped this year, UN says.