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Children among dozens killed in attack on Sudanese village

At least 104 people, including dozens of children, were killed in a firearms and artillery attack by Sudanese paramilitaries on a village in Sudan’s most important agricultural region, according to Sudanese democracy activists.

The exact circumstances of Wednesday’s attack in Wad al-Noura, a village 113 kilometers south of the capital Khartoum, were disputed.

But the high death toll and images of a mass burial on Thursday that circulated on social media and were confirmed by The New York Times drew international condemnation and made the attack the latest flashpoint in Sudan’s year-long brutal war.

“Even by the tragic standards of the Sudan conflict, the images from Wad Al-Noura are heartbreaking,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the top UN official in Sudan, said in a statement.

“The world is watching,” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron wrote on social media. “Those responsible will be held to account.”

Yet Sudan has witnessed numerous atrocities without significant criminal consequences since the country plunged into a devastating civil war just over a year ago when fighting broke out between the national army and a powerful paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces.

And with phone lines down in Jazeera province, where Wad al-Noura is located, Sudanese people had to rely on videos and reports from local activists to understand the recent mass casualties.

A geolocated video shared online by The Times shows a convoy of at least five Rapid Support Forces vehicles lining a road about half a mile from Wad al-Noura on Wednesday.

Armed men can be seen standing on the backs of stationary vehicles firing machine guns across open fields at the village. The video lasts about five minutes and is accompanied by continuous fire.

A spokesman for the video says residents blocked access to the village to prevent the fighters from getting there. It does not appear that the fighters were shot at.

However, another video from Wad al-Noura suggests that the village has mounted some sort of armed defense. In the video, a resident pleads for help as gunshots ring out outside.

“The village is under siege,” the man says. “Save Wad al-Noura.”

The local resistance committee, part of a nationwide network of pro-democracy groups, called the incident a massacre. On Thursday, it released videos showing at least 50 bodies wrapped in cloths and laid out for burial in the village.

The videos and photos were verified by The Times and the Sudan Witness Project at the Center for Information Resilience, a nonprofit organization that monitors conflicts and documents possible war crimes.

At least 104 people were killed, the resistance committee said, blaming the national army for not being able to save them. “The people of Wad Al-Noura called the army for help, but shamefully it did not respond.”

The Rapid Support Forces denied this account. In a statement, they admitted that their troops opened fire on Wad al-Noura, but said they had attacked military positions around the village and lost eight soldiers in the fighting.

The head of the children’s agency UNICEF, Catherine Russell, expressed her “horror” in a statement at reports that at least 35 children had been killed and 20 injured in the violence. She called on the warring parties to abide by international law.

Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, visited villagers injured in the attack on Thursday at a hospital in the nearby town of Al Managil, saying the army would give the RSF a “tough response” for the killings.

The village is located in an agricultural region that was once the breadbasket of Sudan, but is now a massive battlefield.

The RSF captured Wad Madani, the regional capital of Jazeera province, in December, part of an astonishing series of victories that put the Sudanese army at a disadvantage.

In recent months, the military has attempted to recapture Jazeera with a major counteroffensive. Wad al-Noura is about 32 kilometers from the nearest front line.

In the western Darfur region, the RSF laid siege to El Fasher, the Sudanese army’s last remaining stronghold in Darfur, raising fears that a full-scale war in the town could lead to ethnic massacres or exacerbate a hunger crisis that aid workers say threatens to escalate into famine.

American and UN officials say the RSF has received weapons and other support from the United Arab Emirates, its main foreign sponsor. On Thursday, the United States imposed new sanctions on seven Emirati-based companies in connection with the conflict in Sudan.

Abdalrahman Altayeb reported from Port Sudan, Sudan. Videos were edited by Ainara Tiefenthäler