Sudan’s cycle of violence: ‘There is a genocide going on in west Darfur’

Fire rages at a livestock market in El-Fasher, north Darfur, where water and medicines are in short supply. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Riding horses, camels and motorbikes, the paramilitaries arrived on the outskirts of Ardamata in early November. Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters took men from homes that they then burned down; at least 800 people were killed and survivors were ordered to bury the dead.

The RSF went door-to-door in Ardamata, in west Darfur, according to the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, rounding up and killing people from the Masalit ethnic group.