An attack by Sudan's Rapid Support Forces on the Darfur stronghold of their former militia chief left dozens of casualties and hundreds displaced, local sources and the United Nations said Tuesday.
Two eyewitnesses told AFP that 28 people were killed.
On Monday, the RSF attacked the town of Mustariha in North Darfur, home to tribal leader Musa Hilal, from whose Janjaweed militia the paramilitary group emerged.
The United Nations said an estimated 2,690 people were displaced from the town between Monday and Tuesday "due to heightened insecurity".
Since April 2023, the war between Mohamed Hamdan Daglo's RSF and Sudan's regular army has devastated the country, particularly in the vast western region of Darfur, where the RSF has consolidated control.
Hilal - who was sanctioned by the UN for ethnic atrocities in Darfur in the 2000s - has mostly stayed out of the war but recently voiced support for the army.
A medical source at Kabkabiya Hospital, west of Mustariha, said they had received "39 injured people, all suffering from gunshot wounds or shrapnel injuries".
The assault on Mustariha came against a backdrop of rising tribal tension in Darfur, where a UN probe last week found the RSF has committed acts of genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups.
"I saw 28 bodies as we fled Mustariha," said Ahmed Youssef, who arrived in Kabkabiya with his son.
Another local of Mustariha, who said he helped defend the town before fleeing, told AFP: "The force that attacked us was large and used artillery. We retreated to save lives, after 28 of our people were killed."
Two RSF sources told AFP their fighters captured the town on Monday, a day after Hilal's clan said drones targeted his home.
Employed by then-autocrat Omar al-Bashir to quash an ethnic rebellion in Darfur, Hilal's Janjaweed forces killed some 300,000 people in the 2000s.
The militia was then formalised into the Rapid Support Forces by Khartoum in 2013, and have since been commanded by Daglo.
Hilal, then sidelined, was arrested in 2017 and pardoned in 2021, after Bashir was ousted.
He and Daglo hail from different clans within the same Arab Rizeigat ethnic group - the RSF's own tribal base, which experts warn could be threatened if Hilal enters the fray.
Darfur, an area the size of France, is home to many armed groups mostly organised along ethnic lines.
While some have fought for either the RSF or the army, others have remained neutral, forging informal deals to keep territories under their control.
Since April 2023, the war has killed tens of thousands and left some 11 million displaced, creating the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.
(AFP)