Gunmen believed to be from Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces have killed the pro-army governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abekr, shortly after he gave an interview blaming the paramilitary unit for a wave of killings in the town of Al Geneina.
Videos shared online show armed men in camouflage fatigues take him out of the back of an all-terrain vehicle and shove him into a room. One of the men is seen hitting him with a chair.
Another video shows his dead body soaked in blood with an apparent gunshot wound to the chest.
The RSF has not commented on the death of the governor.
Mr Abekr told Saudi-owned television network Al Hadath in a telephone interview hours before he was killed on Wednesday that Al Geneina had been destroyed.
“The whole town has been ravaged by the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias,” he said.
Gunfire could be heard in the background as he spoke.
“Civilians are being killed randomly and in large numbers,” he told Al Hadath.
Hundreds are believed to have been killed in the area and tens of thousands forced to flee to neighbouring Chad as the RSF and its allied Arab militiamen fought the army and former rebels there.
More than 100 people have been killed in violent clashes in and near camps for displaced people in North Darfur, said the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.
“There are shocking reports of horrific sexual violence against women and girls. This will worsen unless the parties to the conflict agree to end a fight that is destroying Sudan,” he wrote on Twitter on Thursday.