section_path: Massacres/Geneina massacre
section_name: Geneina massacre
paragraph_text: Geneina massacre
  
  On 13 July 2023, a UN investigation discovered a mass grave of 87 individuals, all Masalit civilians, near Geneina. The civilians were killed by the Rapid Support Forces between 13 and 21 June. Many of the dead were from al-Madariss and al-Jamarik neighborhoods. Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, deplored the killings and stated that the UN was not allowed access to the site until July.
  
  During an attack on 19 June 2023, emir Badawi Masri Balhredin, cousin of the Dar Masalit sultan, was killed by the RSF. Several other prominent people were killed in attacks on 19 and 20 June, including Sadig Haroun, the Commissioner of Humanitarian Aid in the city, and several mayors and imams. The Darfur Bar Association reported the next day that the refugee camps of Kreinik and Sirba were under siege by the RSF. All makeshift shelters and refugee camps had been burned down by 20 June. Numerous villages, neighborhoods, and cultural sites in and around Geneina were destroyed, including the city's Grand Market and the palace of the Masalit Sultanate.
  
  On 22 June, the Dar Masalit Sultanate also released a statement claiming more than 5,000 civilians had been killed between 24 April and 24 June, the majority of whom were non-Arabs. The Sultanate called the situation a "genocide", and footage emerged of corpses being used as barricades, and the bodies of men, women, and children strewn across the streets. Refugees from West Darfur speaking to Al Jazeera in late June corroborated these claims, adding that similar situations unfolded in the West Darfur towns of Misteri, Konga Haraza, and Tendelti between April and June. The RSF also attacked civilians in June on the road between Geneina and the Sudanese-Chadian border. Many of these killings were at RSF checkpoints, where a pregnant woman was killed by militiamen for not having enough money for passage. A Geneina refugee stated that "the road along El Geneina and Adré has a lot of bodies, nobody can count them". Another source claimed over 350 people were killed on the road alone.