"The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have looted everything: cars, lorries and tractors," laments a resident of a village in the state of al-Jazira, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the paramilitaries as they push southwards in war-torn Sudan.
The villagers of al-Jazira hold their breath every time they hear the roar of a car or motorbike engine, so fearful are they of the dreaded RSF paramilitaries.
"On Saturday, seven individuals armed with machine guns and wearing FSR uniforms knocked on my door", Abdine told the press, declining to reveal his surname for security reasons.
They asked him about the car parked in his garage before "taking it away with their weapons pointed at us", said a distressed resident of Hasaheisa, a town 50 kilometres north of the capital of Al-Jazeera, Wad Madani.
The bloody war that has pitted the Sudanese army against the RSF paramilitaries in Khartoum for the past eight months has forced half a million people to seek refuge further south, in this agricultural state that was until recently spared the violence.
Recently, however, the paramilitaries, who control most of the capital, have been advancing along the motorway linking the capital to Wad Madani, taking village after village and terrorising its inhabitants.
On 15 December, they attacked Wad Madani, forcing more than 300,000 people to flee again, within the state of Al-Jazira but also towards the neighbouring states of Sennar and Gedaref, according to the UN.
Since then, the paramilitaries have continued their relentless descent southwards.
On Saturday, they were spotted "15 kilometres north of Sennar", 140 kilometres south of Wad Madani, witnesses told the press.
"Army planes bombed Rapid Support Forces gatherings to the north of the town, causing panic among residents", other witnesses reported.Since the surprise start of the conflict on 15 April, the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane has mainly played its air trump card: it is the only army with fighter jets.General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo's FSR, on the other hand, favours mobile troops perched on pick-ups.
Everywhere they go, women and girls are afraid of being subjected to "sexual violence, a recurring threat" in Sudan, according to the NGO Save the Children.
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