Sudanese paramilitary forces killed at least 80 people in a southeastern village, a medical source and witnesses said Friday, even as US-sponsored talks sought to end 16 months of devastating war.
The assault occurred in Jalgini village in the state of Sennar on Thursday.
"We received 55 dead and dozens of wounded at the hospital on Thursday, and 25 of them died on Friday, bringing the death toll to 80," a source at Jalgini's medical centre told AFP.
A survivor said the paramilitaries had initially faced resistance from local villagers before returning in full force.
"Yesterday morning, three military vehicles attacked Jalgini. The residents resisted, prompting the retreat of the paramilitaries, who then returned with dozens of vehicles," a Jalgini resident, who took his wounded son to the hospital, told AFP.
"They opened fire, torching homes and killing numerous people," said the man, who asked not to be named. "On Friday, some bodies were still strewn on the street."
Ceasefire talks began on Wednesday in Switzerland, hosted by US, Saudi and Swiss mediators, though the Sudanese army refused to take part. Previous rounds of negotiations in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia have failed to produce an agreement to end the fighting.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which since April 2023 has been battling Sudan's regular army, captured the Sennar state capital of Sinja in June. Since then, fighting in Sennar has displaced nearly 726,000 people, according to UN agency the International Organization for Migration.
Many of them had fled the war in other parts of the northeast African country. The state connects central Sudan to the army-controlled southeast, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought refuge. The RSF controls most of the capital Khartoum, the central state of Al-Jazira, the vast western Darfur region and large swathes of Kordofan in the south.