Qualla: Kreinik massacre

Kreinik massacre: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Kreinik was supposed to be the safer place. When Janjaweed militias had swept through West Darfur in earlier years, Masalit families had fled here, to this small town near El Geneina, and rebuilt what lives they could. By April 2022 the camp and the town around it were home to thousands of people who had already lost homes once. Then, starting on April 21, the Janjaweed came to Kreinik too. By the time the worst of the violence ended a week later, at least two hundred people were dead and much of Kreinik was burning.

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Kreinik massacre: The People at the Center

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Masalit are a non-Arab ethnic group indigenous to the border region between Sudan's Darfur and eastern Chad. They farm. They speak Masalit. They are Muslims, like most of their Arab neighbors, but they are not Arabs, and that distinction has been weaponized against them for m...

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Kreinik massacre: The First Day

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On April 21, 2022, two Arab men were killed near Kreinik by unknown assailants. Within hours, Rizeigat Arab militiamen and fighters from the Rapid Support Forces were moving on the town. The first attack hit the town square on April 22, killing nine people. From there the violenc...

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Kreinik massacre: What Was Lost

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The numbers rose through the week. By April 26, The Guardian reported at least 200 dead. Dabanga, a Sudanese outlet, put the figure at 168 dead and 110 injured. The real total is almost certainly higher. Families in Kreinik lost children, parents, siblings. Markets burned. Grain ...

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Kreinik massacre: The Burned Spectre

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By early May, Masalit self-defense groups had retaken the center of Kreinik, though the roads into town remained under Janjaweed and RSF control. Most residents left anyway, to El Geneina or to refugee camps across the border in Chad, where many remained as of 2023. When a Le Mon...

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Kreinik massacre: A Pattern, Still Unfolding

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Hemedti, the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, issued a statement expressing his condolences and blamed both sides. The Sudanese minister of defense claimed to have sent reinforcements. Neither action changed anything. Less than a year after the Kreinik massacre, Hemedti's R...

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