00:00 In other news, in recent days the United Nations has been warning that the fighting in Sudan
00:03 is increasingly taking on an ethnic dimension.
00:06 There's now new evidence that seems indeed to support those fears.
00:10 The bodies of nearly 90 people allegedly killed by Sudanese paramilitary groups were uncovered
00:15 in a mass grave in West Darfur.
00:18 Some of them belong to the ethnic African Masolet tribe, according to the UN Human Rights
00:23 Office.
00:24 Now, what started as a conflict opposing rival military factions has been raging since April
00:29 15th, but Darfur has increasingly become the epicenter of the conflict and violence mirroring
00:34 the Darfur genocide.
00:36 Rapid support forces, troops and their allied Arab militias have been attacking largely
00:41 black African ethnic groups.
00:43 Our regional correspondent, Bastien Renouit, has more.
00:47 On the 20th and 21st of June, rapid support forces members and local militiamen allied
00:52 to the RSF forced residents of El Janina, the capital of West Darfur, to bury the bodies
00:58 of many civilians in mass graves.
01:01 Among the 87 bodies, seven children, seven women and many civilian men.
01:07 And this information provided by the UN is not surprising.
01:10 There's been no fighting between the army and the rapid support forces in El Janina
01:14 for weeks, but the rapid support forces and local militias have been surrounding the city
01:19 since the beginning of the clashes on the 15th of April.
01:23 And since then, they've been targeting civilians, looting their houses, burning the markets
01:27 and killing many of them.
01:30 Most of them, most of the civilians being from the Masalit tribe, a tribe that the RSF
01:34 considered as an African tribe in opposition to them.
01:37 They consider themselves as members of an Arabic tribe.
01:41 I was on the phone with the governor of West Darfur, Hamis Abaker, shortly before he was
01:46 assassinated by the rapid support forces on the 15th of June.
01:51 And he was speaking about a genocide ongoing in the West Darfur region.
01:56 Even if it's a bit early to speak about a genocide, legally speaking, there is no doubt
02:01 that ethnic cleansing is ongoing in this West Darfur region at the moment.
