Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), engaged in an ongoing conflict with the regular army, announced on Saturday that they had captured the town of Al-Tina on the border with Chad.
Previously, the town was believed to be under the control of the Joint Forces, allied with the army, which has been at war with the RSF since April 2023.
Alongside a statement posted on social media, the RSF shared a video showing some of its fighters celebrating under a banner reading “District of Al-Tina".
The army did not immediately respond, but Darfur’s pro-army governor, Minni Minnawi, condemned what he described as “repeated criminal behaviour embodying the worst offences against the innocent.”
Since the outbreak of fighting, Sudan’s civil war has killed tens of thousands and forced 11 million people to flee their homes, creating what the United Nations has described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
On Thursday, the UN’s independent fact-finding mission on Sudan said the RSF’s storming of the Darfur hub El-Fasher last October bore “the hallmarks of genocide".
Since the fall of El-Fasher, the paramilitaries have launched several operations near the Chad border, and at the end of last year, two Chadian soldiers were killed.
