UN experts: Sudan’s paramilitary forces carried out ethnic killings and rapes that may be war crimes - Darfur is experiencing “its worst violence since 2005”

EDITH LEDERER, an exceptional war journalist with 50 years experience, never fails to produce well written, accurate news reports devoid of sensationalism and spin. Proper reporting. Here is a good example. 

This report by Ms Lederer today states that a UN panel of experts said Darfur is experiencing “its worst violence since 2005.” Also, according to the panel, the “RSF’s takeover of Darfur relied on three lines of support: the Arab allied communities, dynamic and complex financial networks, and new military supply lines running through Chad, Libya and South Sudan.” 

Also, "while both the Sudanese military and RSF engaged in widespread recruitment drives across Darfur from late 2022, the RSF was more successful, the experts said. And it “invested large proceeds from its pre-war gold business in several industries, creating a network of as many as 50 companies.” The RSF’s complex financial networks “enabled it to acquire weapons, pay salaries, fund media campaigns, lobby, and buy the support of other political and armed groups,” the experts said". Read more.

From The Associated Press (AP)
BY EDITH M. LEDERER
Dated Friday, 01 March 2024, Updated 6:26 AM GMT. Here is a copy in full:

UN experts: Sudan’s paramilitary forces carried out ethnic killings and rapes that may be war crimes

FILE - Residents displaced from a surge of violent attacks squat on blankets and in hastily made tents in the village of Masteri in west Darfur, Sudan, on July 30, 2020. Paramilitary forces and their allied militias fighting to take power in Sudan carried out widespread ethnic killings and rapes while taking control of much of western Darfur that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to a new report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, by The Associated Press. (Mustafa Younes via AP, File)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Paramilitary forces and their allied militias fighting to take power in Sudan carried out widespread ethnic killings and rapes while taking control of much of western Darfur that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, United Nations experts said in a new report.

The report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, paints a horrifying picture of the brutality of the Arab-dominated Rapid Support Forces against Africans in Darfur. It also details how the RSF succeeded in gaining control of four out of Darfur’s five states, including through complex financial networks that involve dozens of companies.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April, when long-simmering tensions between its military led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, broke out into street battles in the capital, Khartoum.

Fighting spread to other parts of the country, but in Sudan’s Darfur region it took on a different form: brutal attacks by the RSF on African civilians, especially the ethnic Masalit.

Two decades ago, Darfur became synonymous with genocide and war crimes, particularly by the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias against populations that identify as Central or East African. It seems that legacy has returned, with the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan saying in late January there are grounds to believe both sides are committing possible war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in Darfur.

The panel of experts said Darfur is experiencing “its worst violence since 2005.”

The ongoing conflict has caused a large-scale humanitarian crisis and displaced approximately 6.8 million people — 5.4 million within Sudan and 1.4 million who have fled to other countries, including approximately 555,000 to neighboring Chad, the experts said.

The RSF and rival Sudanese government forces have both used heavy artillery and shelling in highly populated areas, causing widespread destruction of critical water, sanitation, education and health care facilities.

In their 47-page report, the experts said the RSF and its militias targeted sites in Darfur where displaced people had found shelter, civilian neighborhoods and medical facilities.

According to intelligence sources, the panel said, in just one city — Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state near the Chad border — between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed.

The experts said sexual violence by the RSF and its allied militia was widespread.

The panel said that, according to reliable sources from Geneina, women and girls as young as 14 years old were raped by RSF elements in a U.N. World Food Program storage facility that the paramilitary force controlled, in their homes, or when returning home to collect belongings after being displaced by the violence. Additionally, 16 girls were reportedly kidnapped by RSF soldiers and raped in an RSF house.

“Racial slurs toward the Masalit and non-Arab community formed part of the attacks,” the panel said. “Neighborhoods and homes were continuously attacked, looted, burned and destroyed,” especially those where Masalit and other African communities lived, and their people were harassed, assaulted, sexually abused, and at times executed.

The experts said prominent Masalit community members were singled out by the RSF, which had a list, and the group’s leaders were harassed and some executed. At least two lawyers, three prominent doctors and seven staff members, and human rights activists monitoring and reporting on the events were also killed, they said.

The RSF and its allied militias looted and destroyed all hospitals and medical storage facilities, which resulted in the collapse of health services and the deaths of 37 women with childbirth complications and 200 patients needing kidney dialysis, the panel said.

After the killing of the wali, or governor, of West Darfur in June, the report said, Masalit and African communities decided to seek protection at Ardamata, just outside Geneina. A convoy of thousands moved out at midnight but as they reached a bridge, RSF and allied militias indiscriminately opened fire, and survivors reported that an estimated 1,000 people were killed, they said.

The panel stressed that disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians — including torture, rapes and killings as well as destruction of critical civilian infrastructure — constitute war crimes under the 1949 Geneva conventions.

The RSF was formed out of Janjaweed fighters by Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled the country for three decades, was overthrown during a popular uprising in 2019, and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for charges of genocide and other crimes during the conflict in Darfur in the 2000s.

According to the panel, the “RSF’s takeover of Darfur relied on three lines of support: the Arab allied communities, dynamic and complex financial networks, and new military supply lines running through Chad, Libya and South Sudan.”

While both the Sudanese military and RSF engaged in widespread recruitment drives across Darfur from late 2022, the RSF was more successful, the experts said. And it “invested large proceeds from its pre-war gold business in several industries, creating a network of as many as 50 companies.”

The RSF’s complex financial networks “enabled it to acquire weapons, pay salaries, fund media campaigns, lobby, and buy the support of other political and armed groups,” the experts said.

United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who visited Chad in September, called the report’s findings “horrific” and expressed “deep disappointment” that the U.N. Security Council and the international community have paid such little attention to the allegations.

“The people of Sudan feel that they have been forgotten,” she said.

In light of the humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan and the broader region, Thomas-Greenfield demanded that the Sudanese military lift its prohibition on cross-border assistance from Chad and facilitate cross-line assistance from the east. She also demanded in a statement Wednesday that the RSF halt the looting of humanitarian warehouses and that both parties stop harassing humanitarian aid workers.

“The council must act urgently to alleviate human suffering, hold perpetrators to account, and bring the conflict in Sudan to an end,” the U.S. ambassador said. “Time is running out.”

Source: https://apnews.com/article/sudan-paramilitary-ethnic-killings-united-nations-report-37eb2b6980e029d5603d83401619c85d

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Sudan: ASG for Africa briefs UNSC on deadly spiral of violence. UNSG appoints Martin to review UNITAMS

THE UN Secretary-General has appointed Ian Martin – a seasoned UN negotiator, who led missions in Libya, Nepal, Timor Leste as well as Ethiopia and Eritrea – to lead a strategic review of UNITAMS to provide the Security Council with options on how to adapt its mandate to fit the wartime conditions. Note that the UK is the penholder on Sudan and in November China holds the presidency of the Security Council. Read more.

From United Nations News - un.org/en
Dated Thursday, 16 November 2023 - here is a copy in full:

Sudan: Deadly spiral of violence continues between military rivals

© UNICEF/Zehbrauskas A child stands with water collected from an IDP camp in Nyala, Darfur. (file)

The war between rival militaries in Sudan, which has been raging for over seven months has further intensified in recent weeks, particularly in the volatile Darfur region, a senior UN official said on Thursday.

Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, informed ambassadors on the Security Council that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have gained territory, pushing the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) out of several of its bases in the region since late October.

The RSF seems poised to advance on El Fasher in north Darfur, a major town and the last SAF holdout in the region, according to media reports.

“An RSF attack on El Fasher or its surrounding areas could result in high numbers of civilian casualties, due to the large number of internally displaced persons located there,” Ms. Pobee said.

She informed Council members that some armed groups in the region, which had so far been neutral in the conflict, have allied with the SAF.

Outside of Darfur, clashes continue in Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, with the main fighting taking place around SAF strongholds. Hostilities are also spreading into new areas, including Gezira, White Nile and West Kordofan states, Ms. Pobee added.

Humanitarian calamity

The conflict has caused a severe humanitarian crisis and increasing human rights violations in Sudan, resulting in the deaths of over 6,000 civilians, including women and children, since April.

Across the country, over 7.1 million people have been driven from their homes, including hundreds of thousands into neighbouring countries.

Despite difficulties in access, attacks on aid workers, and bureaucratic hurdles, the UN and partners have delivered life-saving aid to 4.1 million people, which is only 22 percent of the targeted assistance for 2023.

“Civilians continue to face serious violations of human rights, including sexual and gender-based violence,” she said, noting that testimonies collected by the UN mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) pointed to RSF personnel or men in RSF uniforms as alleged perpetrators.

Adapting the mission

Ms. Pobee further said that the Secretary-General has appointed Ian Martin – a seasoned UN negotiator, who led missions in Libya, Nepal, Timor Leste as well as Ethiopia and Eritrea – to lead a strategic review of UNITAMS to provide the Security Council with options on how to adapt its mandate to fit the wartime conditions.

“Mr. Martin will hold extensive consultations with key stakeholders including Sudanese authorities, civil society, regional and sub-regional organizations, Member States and relevant entities within the UN system,” she added.

Fighting is futile

In conclusion, Ms. Pobee emphasized that it is crucial for the SAF and RSF to “recognize the futility of continued fighting and prioritize dialogue and deescalation.”

She emphasized that Sudan’s situation should remain a global concern, urging the international community to renew its commitment to coordinated peace efforts led by the region.

View original: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143687

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OCHA Sudan: Statement of Commitments adopted in Jeddah & new OCHA Humanitarian Forum for Sudan

Press Release

Source: OCHA

Posted Tuesday, 7 Nov 2023 - here is a copy in full:

Statement by the Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan on Statement of Commitments adopted in Jeddah

(Port Sudan, 7 November 2023) The Statement of Commitments adopted in Jeddah today by the parties to the conflict in Sudan marks a moment of truth for the country. The promises made by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – to protect civilians and provide unimpeded humanitarian access – are promises that must be kept.

I thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development – representing IGAD and the African Union – for their role in facilitating these critical negotiations.

In particular, I welcome the agreement to establish a Humanitarian Forum for Sudan led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs representing the humanitarian community and with the participation of the parties to the conflict. The forum will further facilitate the implementation of the commitments made in Jeddah.

It comes -and not a moment too soon. After almost seven months of war, half of Sudan’s population – nearly 25 million people – need humanitarian assistance. Displacement, disease and sexual violence are rampant.

The tangible commitments agreed by the SAF and RSF today must now be followed by immediate and tangible actions. It is critical that the obstacles – bureaucratic and otherwise – that keep us from delivering life-saving relief at speed and at scale are cleared away once and for all.

We must have reliable guarantees from all parties to ensure that relief items, humanitarian workers and assets can move safely across conflict lines. We simply cannot reach Khartoum, Darfur, the Kordofans and other war-torn areas of the country without these assurances.

The parties to the conflict have a shared obligation to honour the commitments made in Jeddah. For the sake of the millions of civilians in Sudan who want no part of this war and in the spirit of today’s agreement, they must work toward a permanent cessation of hostilities. The people of Sudan deserve nothing less.

 

***

Download Report

(PDF | 129.07 KB)

For further information, please contact: 

Karlsson, Sofie, karlsson2@un.org, +249 912 17 44 56

View original: https://reliefweb.int/report/saudi-arabia/statement-humanitarian-coordinator-sudan-statement-commitments-adopted-jeddah

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Sudan: RSF to turn Zurrug, N Darfur into a dream city

THE ruthless leader of Sudan's Arab militia has grand plans for the remote western province. But the transformation of Zurrug risks more unrest. Read more in this report from the archives of Sudan Watch, copied here in full.

Blood, sand and gold: victor’s city rises from ashes of Sudan’s civil war

Report from the The Observer - www.theguardian.com

Observer dispatch Darfur

By KLAAS VAN DIJKEN

Dated Saturday 29 February 2020, 17.05 GMT

Photo: Children at the school in Zurrug sing anti-racism songs that praise the Rapid Support Forces. Photograph: Klaas van Dijken/Lighthouse Reports

Zurrug is one of the few towns on Earth that has yet to appear on Google maps. After nightfall, its sparse shacks are illuminated by campfires that throw shadows over pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns – the only hint of the violent past of this outpost in Darfur, Sudan’s troubled western province.

The town is being built on the spoils of a brutal war that once tore at the conscience of the world. The victors in that conflict have grand plans for this settlement based on a winner-takes-all vision for their home region – a vision that clouds the future of the whole of Sudan.

The Observer was given unprecedented access to this remote area of Darfur by the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group whose influence stretches from Sudan’s borderlands with Chad and Libya to the capital, Khartoum, where protesters last year toppled 30-year dictator Omar al-Bashir.

The RSF wants to show off a future city as evidence of the peace it has brought to this contested land. To the vanquished – scattered in their millions across desperate refugee camps within and beyond Sudan’s borders – Zurrug is an insult being built on stolen land.

Darfur and Bashir were back in the headlines last month when Sudan’s transitional government agreed to hand over the ousted president to the international criminal court to face charges of crimes against humanity. These crimes took place in Darfur from 2003, when Bashir unleashed Arab militia, with the backing of the Sudanese army, to crush an insurgency by black African tribes. What began as ethnic clashes over land and water escalated into a crisis that prompted western public demonstrations, celebrity activism and a genocide investigation.

Those armed herders were known at the time as the Janjaweed, or “devils on horseback”. Today they are called the RSF. Their leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – long referred to as Hemedti – is Bashir’s heir apparent. A renowned and ruthless commander, he was called by Bashir “my protector”, a role that helped him become the wealthiest man in Sudan.

Zurrug is a world away from Khartoum, where riverine Arab elites created a metropolis thanks to their dominance of politics and economy. This makeshift town is a 10-hour drive across the vast plateau from Darfur’s northern city of El Fasher.

In its current form, Zurrug’s market has stalls hawking anything from Chinese phones to sacks of beans. The prefab clinic and school are speckled with the letters “UN”, a reminder that they have been jerry-built from the wreckage of the shrinking peacekeeping mission to Darfur, Unamid.

Photo: Rapid Support Forces on the way from Kutum towards Zurrug. Photograph: Klaas van Dijken/Lighthouse Reports

According to plans seen by the Observer, Zurrug will become a city. The documents call for residential areas, a hospital and town squares. Officials from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates visited in 2018 promising to help finance the work, including an international airport.

For now, two water towers mark the entrance to the town, placed there to slake the thirst of the camels, which vastly outnumber either people or vehicles. The largest house belongs to Juma Dagalo, the area’s chief and Hemedti’s uncle. “We were nomads, but now we want to develop ourselves, so we have to settle and send our children to school,” he said.

In his telling, Zurrug belongs to his ethnic group, the Mahariya, having been gifted to them by their former colonial masters, the British. The chief, who brought Hemedti up, says the land was empty.

This story of empty land is bitterly disputed by community leaders in the camps in north Darfur. They claim Zurrug is on land they inhabited for centuries before being forced to leave by the RSF, who used the same tactics – murder, rape and robbery – as the Janjaweed. One of these communities is the Zaghawa, a black African ethnic group who bore much of the brunt of the war crimes alleged in Bashir’s ICC indictment.

Mohamed Ibrahim, a Zaghawa chief or umda, said: “What Juma Dagalo is saying is not true. Zurrug was not empty land. We have our farms there but we cannot harvest. The RSF denies us access.”

Injustice and asymmetric war on civilians dominated much of the three decades that Bashir spent in power. His hold on office relied on a complex of alliances that spanned the Islamists, the army and support among the Arab middle class. Last year the regime collapsed as demonstrators in the cities demanded a civilian government. But insiders claim that Bashir stepped down only when Hemedti refused to use the RSF to crush the demonstrations. The protector switched allegiances from Bashir to the protestors in a move that saw him expand his support base far beyond Darfur.

“I stood beside the Sudanese people,” Hemedti told the Observer from his gilded residence in Khartoum. “A massacre would have happened herein Khartoum, a genocide would have happened on 11 April without our existence.”

The RSF is sanctioned by the state but its allegiance is to Hemedti, not Sudan’s army. His leadership of what is effectively a private army has reportedly helped him make a fortune from gold, construction and alleged smuggling. Hemedti denies that the men he commands perpetrated atrocities, either in their former guise as the Janjaweed or more recently as the RSF.

Today, Hemedti, whose Mahariya clan is part of the populous Rizeigat tribe, is vice-chairman of the sovereign council, the transitional body that is meant to guide Sudan to a new civilian government. But his credentials as protector of the people were stained in June last year when soldiers – many in RSF uniforms – attacked a civilian sit-in in the capital. More than 150 people were killed and many woman were raped. Hemedti denies ordering the violence and blames elements of the former regime seeking to discredit him. His denial is dismissed by most of the protest groups.

Photo: Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, the RSF leader. Photograph: STR/AP

Meanwhile, a struggle is being waged inside the Sovereign Council, and on the streets, to make good on the promise of a transition to civilian rule. The army retains a powerful, possibly decisive voice on the council. Straddling it all is Hemedti, not beholden to Sudan’s army, confident in his wealth and political support. He has the backing of influential Gulf States, cemented by sending the RSF to fight in Yemen alongside Saudi proxies in yet another gruesome conflict.

For now, Hemedti prefers to whitewash the RSF’s recent and deeper past, saying his forces have brought safety and stability to Darfur. On the issue of land, he appears magnanimous: “Whoever took land or built anything on land which is not his, he has to leave it. Everybody has to take his own old land.”

But those who have done the taking in north Darfur are overwhelmingly Hemedti’s own Mahariya people. His uncle, Juma Dagalo, has toured the region enticing members of his own ethnic group to come and settle in Zurrug and six other proto-towns around it. Each one has the same school and clinic, recycled from the UN bases. The teachers and doctors are on Hemedti’s payroll. Water towers, a practical and symbolic way of staking claim to land, have started to appear – all financed by the RSF.

A report last year from the UN panel of experts for Darfur concluded that development around Zurrug was meant to lure people from the cities. It also warned that it had the potential to “become a new source of conflict”.

The land issue is far from buried, and Darfur is part of the same negotiations between Sudan’s transitional government and various rebel groups that saw Bashir offered up to the ICC. Whatever those talks conclude, the facts on the ground are already being changed, with mono-ethnic settlements expanding every day.

After dark in Zurrug the children of the Mahariya gather around a single lightbulb to recite passages from the Qur’an. During the day they sing songs that mash up anti-racism slogans with praise for the RSF. These anthems would ring hollow with the disenfranchised Zaghawa, who have formed committees in their camps and written letters to Sudan’s new leadership. They have had no response and their leader, Mohamed Ibrahim, warns: “If we can’t solve this peacefully, we will take up arms again.”

Source: https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2020/03/sudan-blood-sand-and-gold-victors-city.html

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