Between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in one city in Sudan's West Darfur region last year in ethnic violence by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militia, according to a United Nations report seen by Reuters on Friday.

In the report to the UN Security Council, independent UN sanctions monitors attributed the toll in El Geneina to intelligence sources and contrasted it with the UN estimate that about 12,000 people have been killed across Sudan since war erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese army and the RSF.

Between April and June last year El Geneina experienced "intense violence," the monitors wrote, accusing the RSF and allies of targeting the ethnic African Masalit tribe in attacks that "may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The RSF has previously denied the accusations and said any of its soldiers found to be involved would face justice.

"The attacks were planned, coordinated and executed by RSF and their allied Arab militias," the sanctions monitors wrote in their annual report to the 15-member Security Council.

(Cover: Displaced people fleeing from Wad Madani in Sudan's Jazira state arrived in Gedaref in the country's east on December 17, 2023. /CFP)