The Genocide in Sudan

"Here in El Fasher, we are starving."

"The responsibility is not just on those holding the guns. It's on the world. The Arab countries. The African Union. Europe." 

"The so-called international community. All of them."

"We know they can help. We know they have the power to airdrop food. They have planes. They have supplies."

"But they are choosing not to."

Abaaz Sudan Dispatch quoting Sudanese civilian

 

"[The U.S.’ determination of genocide in Sudan is] long overdue [and should have happened sooner]."

"[Nonetheless, it is] a form of justice because it recognizes victims’ grievances."

"It is a step towards peace and accountability by paving the way to hold actors responsible to account, not only perpetrators themselves but actors complicit in genocide."

Sudanese lawyer Mutasim Ali, legal adviser, Canada-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

 

"We don’t think that the scale of these atrocities happening in Sudan and Darfur would have been this big without the support of the UAE [United Arab Emirates] to the RSF [paramilitary Rapid Support Forces]."

"So, we hope that the US decision to sanction Hemedti will send a strong message to the UAE to rethink its position and engage in a serious political process to end these atrocities and genocidal acts happening across the country."

"The RSF has been completely emboldened by impunity, a lack of accountability, and the fact that they were not seriously subjected to any sort of accountability."

Sudanese activist Hala Al-Karib, head, regional arm, Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa 

 Smoke rises above buildings after aerial bombardment during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese military in Khartoum, Sudan. Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

 

 

The RSF's  Hemedti

"[Hemedti’s RSF and its allied Arab militias had perpetrated] direct attacks against civilians [including the systematic murder of] men and boys – even infants – on an ethnic basis."

"[They also] deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence. [The same forces] targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies."

"Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan."

"To the foreign sponsors sending drones, missiles, mercenaries – enough. To those profiting off the illicit oil and gold trade that fund this conflict – enough."

Biden Administration U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

 

"The UAE has made absolutely clear that it is not providing any support or supplies to any of the two belligerent warring parties in Sudan."

"Our primary focus remains on addressing the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Sudan."

"We continue to call for an immediate ceasefire and a peaceful resolution to this man-made conflict."

United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry  

According to the United States there is an actual genocide taking place in Sudan, one that the world largely overlooks. Yet Sudan represents the world's worst humanitarian crisis where last year famine was officially declared, with the United Nations reporting that 25 million Sudanese face extreme hunger, with up to 12 million having been forced to flee their homes, in the midst of a brutal civil war. The death toll after years of conflict, according to the U.S. special envoy Tom Perriello, appears to have exceeded 400,000. 

 

Back in January before the change of administration, there was an official declaration naming the killing in Sudan as a genocide, and in April the Trump administration as well characterized the ongoing slaughter as a genocide. A determination echoed by the U.S. State Department. Bipartisan agreement has been reached in the United States affirming that Sudan is suffering through both genocide and famine. Despite which there is no consensus opinion over what official reaction or intervention might take shape. 

 

Somewhat reminiscent of the years of civil conflict in Syria when President Bashar al Assad, faced by a  rebellion from Sunni Syrians fed up with being treated like second-class citizens by the ruling Alawites, brooked no dissent of his rule, and set out to destroy his detractors by turning a protest into a civil war, attacking his own Sunni population with all the conceivable weaponry at his disposal, including chemical warfare and barrel bombs along with support from Iran's Republican Guards and Russian air offence. There too, a figure of 400,000 killed and millions internally displaced, millions more refugees, took place.  

 

A woman and baby are seen at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan.  Mohamed Zakaria/MSF/Reuters

 

While the world community has its condemnatory gaze fixed on Gaza, where charges of genocide and starvation are rife yet faces plausible deniability by Israel, in a conflict where it is a common ploy for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to shelter behind the civilian population, deliberately placing civilians in the direct line of conflict with a defining purpose to use figures of large numbers of civilians becoming casualties to flay the conscience of the West with the charge of Palestinian victimhood at the armed hands of the Israeli 'occupation', that same world community is utterly disinterested in a real genocide and famine taking place in Africa.

 

In Sudan, survivors speak of ethnic cleansing of immense savagery. In a village on the Sudan-Chad border, an Arab militia ordered men and boys over age 10 to line up and a massacre took place, after which the women and girls were raped. Light-skinned Arabs targeting Black African ethnic groups; as one militia leader stated: "We don't want to see any Black people". These massacres reflect what happened in Darfur, Sudan, when the Sudanese government empowered Arab horsed tribesmen called the Janjaweed to hunt down and kill Darfurian farmers. That same Janjaweed has been transformed into the Rapid Support Forces.

 

For the past two years the Sudanese Armed Forces has been at war with the Rapid Support Forces militia, where both are responsible for starving civilians and impeding humanitarian attempts to give aid and comfort to the starving Sudanese. And although both sides are believed to have committed war crimes, it is the Rapid Support Forces who are responsible for the worst horrors visited  upon their ethnic targets, burning entire villages and slaughtering and raping civilians.

 

Despite their denials, the United Arab Emirates appear as the major supporter of the Rapid Support Forces by underwriting its atrocities. The Biden/Trump administration have held back on holding the Emirates responsibly accountable, yet there are some in the U.S. Congress who support a ban on arms transfers to the Emirates as long as it continues to enable rape and murder of civilians.   

"The RSF and RSF-aligned militias have continued to direct attacks against civilians. The RSF and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys – even infants – on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence."

"Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies. Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan."

"The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible for these atrocities. We are today sanctioning RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa, known as Hemedti, for his role in systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people."

"We are also sanctioning seven RSF-owned companies located in the United Arab Emirates and one individual for their roles in procuring weapons for the RSF."

Then-U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken  

Sudanese soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces unit stand on their vehicle during a military-backed rally south of Khartoum, Sudan. Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP