AL STATE: A landmine has killed 10 civilians on a bus in northern Sudan, a medical source said on Sunday, in what appeared to be the first such incident during the country’s war.

       The conflict pitting the regular army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted in April, and has led to thousands of people being killed and millions displaced.

       A medical source at a hospital in Shendi city in River Nile state, who requested anonymity, said that “10 civilians were killed as a result of a mine explosion on a bus” on Saturday.

       The vehicle was transporting the passengers from eastern Al-Jazira state to Shendi, 180 kilometres from Khartoum, when the blast happened, the source said. It is believed to be the first landmine blast to have occurred during the war between Sudan’s rival generals, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. Neither side has officially commented on the explosion.

       Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, torture and arbitrary detention of civilians.

       The RSF has also been accused of ethnically motivated mass killings, rampant looting and rapes.

       After months of a relative stalemate between the two forces, the RSF has managed to expand their territory throughout the country towards the east, where the army has so far remained in control.

       The feared paramilitary now controls nearly all the vast western region of Darfur, the streets of the capital, and has pressed further south, north and east.

       Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2024