The Sudanese town of Kereinik, in west Darfur, was plunged into a sort of deja vu April 22. Following the killing of two men of the Arab Rzeigat community by unknown perpetrators, over 1,000 armed members of the same group stormed the town, in an attack in which at least eight men of the African Masalit people and seven Arab men were killed, according to the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The next day, security forces deployed in Kereinik, but withdrew shortly thereafter in the face of another large-scale assault on the town. On April 24, Rzeigat assailants seized control of the town for hours, during which they killed dozens of people, forced thousands to flee, and torched and looted hundreds of shops and houses, the OHCHR reported.

The violence spread to more than 15 nearby towns, including El Geneina, the capital of west Darfur. The death toll has risen so far to more than 200, while an estimated 85,000 to 115,000 people are displaced. Both Kereinik and El Geneina have remained in a tense calm since then, but locals fear that violence could flare up again at any moment.

This latest wave of atrocities is the largest on record in the area since the military openly seized power in Sudan last October, and further tarnishes the image of the coup generals and their allies. The episode has again exposed the inability of Khartoum to prevent and stop this type of assaults, and violence has been widely attributed to the powerful Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, and today vice president of the contested Sovereign Council ruling Sudan. The attack also puts in a difficult position those armed groups from Darfur that signed a controversial peace deal with the military in 2020 and are now among their only allies.