Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF) killed at least 124 people in a village in El Gezira state on Friday, activists said, in one of the deadliest incidents of an 18-month war and the deadliest -a series of attacks from the state.

After the surrender of senior RSF officer Abuagla Keikal to the army last Sunday, pro-democracy activists said the RSF had carried out revenge attacks in the agricultural state it hails from, killing and detaining civilians and displacing thousands.

Gezira has already faced a months-long crisis in which residents told Reuters that the RSF had looted homes, killed dozens of civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands.

The northern village of Al-Sireha faced the worst recent violence when at least 124 were killed and 100 wounded in the RSF raid, the Wad Madani Resistance Committee, a pro-democracy group, said on Saturday.

In a statement on Friday, the RSF accused the army of arming civilians in Gezira and using forces under Keikal’s command, prompting its attacks.

The army and RSF did not respond to requests for comment.

The RSF has seized control of large parts of Sudan in a conflict with the military that the United Nations says has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The war displaced more than 11 million people, drove parts of the country to extreme famine or starvation, and attracted foreign powers that provided both sides with material support.

It began in April 2023, when tensions between the RSF and the military, which had previously shared power, erupted into open conflict at a time when Sudan was supposed to transition to civilian rule after a 2021 coup.

“The RSF militia raids east, west and central Gezira and commits extensive massacres in one village after another,” the committee said.

Images on social media shared by the committee and others purported to show dozens of bodies wrapped for burial and mass graves being dug.

“The people of Gezira are facing genocide by the Rapid Support Forces and it is impossible to treat the wounded or even evacuate them for treatment. Those who left on foot have died or are facing death,” the Sudanese Medical Union said, calling for safe passages.

A video circulating on social media purported to show an RSF soldier who said he was in Sireha filming troops lining up men of all ages at gunpoint, using racial epithets and forcing them to bleat like goats.

Another video, shared by the resistance committee, showed an RSF soldier pulling an elderly man by the legs.

Reuters could not immediately verify any of the videos.

Sudan’s Violence Against Women Unit, a government body, said in a statement it had received reports that RSF soldiers raped women in Gezira villages as a tactic to humiliate men and drive people out of the area.

Keikal’s defection came as the military renewed efforts to regain territory across the country.

Sudanese army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan posted on X late Friday that as more civilian blood was spilled, the resolve of the Sudanese people to resist the RSF grew stronger.

But his comments were met with a wave of criticism that the army had failed to protect civilians in Gezira or elsewhere in the country.

The RSF is accused by the United States and others of war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, particularly in West Darfur.

The army is also accused of war crimes after it carried out extensive campaigns of airstrikes that frequently resulted in high civilian deaths but did little to push back the RSF.

“We are monitoring the latest shocking attacks by the RSF on civilians in Gezira. Killings and sexual violence are reprehensible,” US Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello told X, adding that both the RSF and the military are failing to protect civilians.