FILM France24 investigates massacre in Darfur Sudan

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor:  Every week I read hundreds of news reports and thousands of socials commenting on Sudan and South Sudan.

Most of it is propaganda, self-serving promo, activism, lazy journalism, AI. Little hard news coming out of Sudan is made public. Khartoum's destroyed.

People in organisations such as the UN can’t speak out, others work quietly in Port Sudan or neighbouring countries. Aid agencies must remain neutral.

This report by France 24 acts as a powerful witness to the pain and despair of long-suffering Sudanese facing a bleak future. It reduced me to tears. 

Much of the report is from Chad. Let's hope readers will view it more than once and listen closely to those who've been brave enough to be filmed.  

Note, the report says "accounts are reminiscent of the atrocities committed during the 2003-2013 war in Darfur". In reality, the Darfur war never ended.

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Report from REPORTERS France 24 English

Anchor MARK OWEN @markowenf24

Nairobi correspondent ELODIE COUSIN @MlleCsn

Dated Friday, 01 December 2023, 13:23 - here is a copy in full:

Stories of horror: Investigating a massacre in Sudan's Darfur region

Since the start of Sudan's brutal civil war in April, mass killings of civilians have been perpetrated in the West Darfur region. Our team investigates atrocities committed against the local Masalit ethnic group.

Since the start of the war in Sudan on April 15, the capital Khartoum has been the scene of a deadly power struggle between warring generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo. But in the west of the country, in Darfur, a different horror is unfolding. Hemedti's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary and local Arab militia groups are systematically targeting the African Masalit ethnic group. Numerous videos have emerged of torture, massacres and arbitrary arrests. Refugees speak of sexual violence.

Our team went to the border between Chad and Sudan, where 450,000 people have taken refuge, to hear their stories. These accounts are reminiscent of the atrocities committed during the 2003-2013 war in Darfur, in which 300,000 people were killed, according to the UN. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has since opened an investigation into war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the main military leaders of the time.

Our Nairobi bureau brings us this special report.

View original: https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20231201-stories-of-horror-investigating-a-massacre-in-sudan-s-darfur-region or https://f24.my/9yI7

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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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Statement on the Situation in Sudan by the SRSG for Sudan and Head of UNITAMS, Dr Volker Perthes

NOTE, the following statement makes it easy to see why Sudan's junta wants the SRSG and Head of UNITAMS, Dr Volker Perthes, to be replaced and expelled from Sudan for honestly assessing the situation in Sudan. Ethnic cleansing and the Arabisation of Sudan for its riches continues.

Report at UNITAMS - unitams.unmissions.org

Dated Tuesday 13 June 2023 - full copy:

STATEMENT BY THE SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR SUDAN AND HEAD OF THE UNITED NATIONS INTEGRATED TRANSITION ASSISTANCE MISSION IN SUDAN (UNITAMS), MR. VOLKER PERTHES, ON THE SITUATION IN SUDAN

Since the eruption of conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces on 15 April 2023, the security, human rights and humanitarian situation continue to rapidly deteriorate across the country, particularly in the greater Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofan areas. 

 

While the United Nations is at this stage unable to verify all alleged violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, information received from multiple civil society entities and human rights defenders’ networks, paint a clear picture of the devastating scale of impact on the civilian population.

 

In addition to the killing and injury of thousands of civilians, communities continue to grapple with severe shortages of food, access to medical supplies and restricted movement out of conflict areas. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, including populations that had already been displaced following decades of conflict. Allegations of sexual violence against women and girls are deeply alarming.

 

As the situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate, I am particularly alarmed by the situation in El Geneina (West Darfur) following various waves of violence since late April which took on ethnic dimensions. While the United Nations continues to gather additional details regarding these reports, there is an emerging pattern of large-scale targeted attacks against civilians based on their ethnic identities, allegedly committed by Arab militias and some armed men in Rapid Support Force (RSF)’s uniform. These reports are deeply worrying and, if verified, could amount to crimes against humanity.

 

The United Nations condemns in the strongest terms all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, whatever the form and whoever the alleged perpetrators are. It is imperative that security forces and non-state armed actors uphold their duty under international humanitarian law to respect the right to life and refrain from attacks against civilians.

 

While I am encouraged that in some areas, local communities and state authorities have taken proactive measures to help de-escalate and mediate, it is important to ensure that all violations are documented and protected for accountability purposes. UNITAMS will continue its efforts to monitor the situation and avail its resources to engage with all parties to reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict, in coordination with regional and international partners.

View original: 

https://unitams.unmissions.org/en/statement-special-representative-secretary-general-sudan-and-head-united-nations-integrated

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Darfur: Sudan's Janjaweed on the attack again

NOTE from Sudan Watch editor: Further to a news report from The Telegraph reprinted here at Sudan Watch yesterday (Tue 23 May), the following report from BBC News dated 4 weeks ago, states that: 

"A major city in Sudan's Darfur region has been under fierce attack - days after thousands of people arrived there seeking safety after their own town was set ablaze by horse-riding Arab militias known as Janjaweed. 

For the first time in Geneina's history, the hospital has been completely evacuated. All health institutions in the city are closed," the country's Central Committee for Sudanese Doctors says on Twitter.

Even during the height of the Darfur conflict that started in 2003 - a war that has left about 300,000 people dead and more than two million homeless - Geneina's hospital in West Darfur kept operating.

Darfur is rich in gold - and there are accusations Janjaweed incursions are part of attempts to gain control of more land for prospecting."

Read more below about why Sudan's Janjaweed is on the attack again in Darfur, southwest Sudan. Click on a link in report to see video of a group of men. Yellow highlighting is mine for easy future reference. 

Incidentally, the labels at the end of each post, and a search box in the sidebar here, can be used to search Sudan Watch's archive. Due software improvements over the years, it takes a little time and patience to unearth old reports. In the early years, it was so dangerous reporting on Sudan, I would condense 10-20 reports within a single post so the reports couldn't be picked up by search engines and attract attention. 

From: BBC News [reprinted at Sudan Watch, Tue 24 May 2022]

By MOHANAD HASHIM

Published 26 April 2022 

Darfur: Why are Sudan's Janjaweed on the attack again?

IMAGE SOURCE, AFP. Caption, Rapid Support Forces expanded out of the Janjaweed and some of its members have been involved in the recent violence

A major city in Sudan's Darfur region has been under fierce attack - days after thousands of people arrived there seeking safety after their own town was set ablaze by horse-riding Arab militias known as Janjaweed.

"For the first time in Geneina's history, the hospital has been completely evacuated. All health institutions in the city are closed," the country's Central Committee for Sudanese Doctors says on Twitter.

Even during the height of the Darfur conflict that started in 2003 - a war that has left about 300,000 people dead and more than two million homeless - Geneina's hospital in West Darfur kept operating.

An aid worker in Geneina told the BBC that he and his colleagues were staying at a safe house and gunfire could be heard across the city.

Many families who already live in camps in the south of the city after fleeing from the Janjaweed in the past are panicking and leaving their makeshift accommodation.

The recent violence began 80km (50 miles) east of Geneina in Kreinik on Friday and more than 200 have been killed in clashes.

What sparked the clashes?

The fighting was caused by a dispute between Arab nomads and members of the Massalit community, who have clashed over land for decades.

It began after two Arab nomads were killed near Kreinik, a town that has become home to many displaced ethnic black Massalit communities over the last two decades - people who were driven from their rural villages by Janjaweed raids.

IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES. Caption, Many people have been driven out of their settlements over the last two decades

In retaliation for the nomads' deaths, early on Friday morning Arab fighters raided Kreinik, leaving nine people dead and 16 injured.

Then on Sunday, a more co-ordinated attack was launched, this time backed by Sudan's Rapid Support Force (RSF), a paramilitary force that grew out of the Janjaweed.

The attackers arrived in 4x4 vehicles mounted with machine guns, known as "technicals", motorbikes, camels and horses, a statement issued by the Kreinik Voluntary Youth group said.

An unverified video shared on social media shows a large group of Arab fighters on pick-up trucks and motorcycles as they set on their way to attack. Men in RSF fatigues could be seen in the clip.

The town was set alight and local sources said schools and clinics were not spared - six teachers were killed in the raid.

A hospital supported by the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was targeted.

"Three people, including two medical workers, were killed. The hospital´s pharmacy was also looted," MSF said in a statement.

Why didn't the security forces stop the attack?

For many years, UN peacekeepers were trying to keep the peace, but they withdrew at the end of 2020 after their mandate expired - their presence resented across the divides. But even when they were deployed, they would not have been able to stop an attack of this ferocity.

Maintaining peace and security in Darfur is now supposed to be carried out by a joint force made up of the police, army, the RSF and the rebel groups which signed a peace deal in 2020.

But behind the scenes - they are all have competing ambitions and in no way represent a united front.

For example, the police have many non-Arab Massalit members and the RSF has many former Janjaweed members - some of whom have been caught up in the recent fighting.

The local unit tasked with protecting Kreinik withdrew from its positions before the attack, according to local activists.

Why did the fighting spread to Geneina?

The Janjaweed and RSF were chasing a group of fighters from Kreinik to Geneina - and it led to the rampaging of the hospital and general chaos as ethnic tensions flared.

IMAGE SOURCE, BBC. Caption, Geneina is the traditional capital of the Massalit kingdom - a symbol of black power in Darfur, so is viewed with disdain by the Janjaweed, who have been accused of ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

Conflict first erupted in Darfur in 2003 when mostly non-Arabs took up arms against the government, complaining about discrimination and a lack of development.

The government retaliated by mobilising Janjaweed to fight the rebels, unleashing violence that caused global outrage that led to the deployment of peacekeepers and international arrest warrants.

It is the third time Geneina has come under attack since 2019 - a time of change for the country as Omar al-Bashir was ousted as president after nearly 30 years in power.

In March this year violent clashes left dozens dead and injured as well as several villages burnt in the Jebel Moon area to the north of Geneina.

Darfur is rich in gold - and there are accusations Janjaweed incursions are part of attempts to gain control of more land for prospecting.

Adam Rajal - a spokesman for the IDPs Co-ordination Committee, a group that liaises between all the camps for those who have fled their home since 2003 - suggests it is also an attempt to dismantle the camps.

He implies that perpetrators of alleged war crimes in Darfur are worried by the fate of a former Janjaweed leader whose trial has recently begun at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, denies charges of committing crimes against humanity. He is the first person to be tried by the ICC over the conflict - and Bashir too is wanted by the court for war crimes and genocide, which he denies.

"The target is to depopulate towns and dismantle the camps… these IDP camps are the most visible proof of the crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and the war crimes perpetrated by the previous regime," says Mr Rajal.

Why is the RSF so powerful?

The governor of Darfur's regional government Minni Minawi, a former rebel leader, has accused the authorities in Khartoum of not doing enough to rein in the RSF.

But the paramilitary force wields a lot of power in the junta, and its leader Lt-Gen Mohamed Hamdan "Hemeti" Dagolo, is Sudan's deputy leader.

Originally a Chadian Arab, he grew up in Darfur - and has expanded the RSF's membership to include fighters from across the country.

Observers say he is also using the inter-communal violence in Darfur to further his political ambitions.

The Janjaweed has long been accused of recruiting Arab fighters from Chad and other Sahel countries - encouraging them to bring their families as part of attempts to change the political constituency in Darfur.

Gen Hemeti has never commented on the allegations or on the recent violence in West Darfur, but in his public statements he calls for Darfur's diverse communities to live in peace.

More on the Darfur conflict:

• Return of Sudan's feared Janjaweed
• Why this 14-year-old boy has never seen his 'home'

View the original here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-61217999