Sudan & South Sudan: Adama Dieng appointed as first African Union (AU) special envoy for the prevention of the crime of genocide and other mass atrocities

Report from Human Rights Watch
Dated Tuesday, 23 April 2024 7:15AM EDT - here is a copy in full:

Can New African Union Genocide Envoy Curb Atrocities in Africa?

Adama Dieng has Mandate to ‘Combat the Ideology of Hate’

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Adama Dieng, then-UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, New York, June 2019. © 2019 Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Adama Dieng has been appointed as the first African Union (AU) special envoy for the prevention of the crime of genocide and other mass atrocities.

Dieng will drive the organization’s agenda to “combat the ideology of hate and genocide on the continent,” said AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat. The April 6 appointment could not be more symbolic, marking 30 years since the Rwandan genocide and harkening to the failure of the international community to stop the slaughter.

Dieng has occupied several positions within the United Nations human rights and justice system, including as a registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), then as UN designated expert on the situation of human rights in Sudan. From 2012 to 2020, he was UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, with a mandate to raise the alarm over situations likely to spiral into genocide and mobilize UN security council action to prevent such atrocities.

Dieng’s new appointment comes at a time when Africa is witnessing spates of terrible mass atrocities and serious crimes, with dire humanitarian consequences, and little to no international attention.

April 15 marked the first anniversary of the fast-deteriorating conflict in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). While both parties have committed egregious laws of war violations, the targeted attacks on ethnic non-Arab communities in West Darfur by the RSF and allied militias have evoked the spectre of the horrific Darfur war. That conflict killed 300,000 people in the early 2000s and led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict then-Sudan President Omar al-Bashir.

Government forces in Burkina Faso have carried out mass killings of civilians as part of a brutal campaign to tackle Islamist armed groups, who have also committed serious abuses. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, government forces and armed groups, including the Rwanda-backed M23, have committed atrocities against civilians in violence throughout North Kivu and Ituri provinces.

Atrocities and serious crimes are nevertheless not limited to war time, as illustrated by the October 30, 2022 crackdown on protestors in Chad, when scores of protesters were shot by security forces.

Dieng’s newly created regional mandate could be a timely boost to existing international mechanisms on atrocities prevention if it proves to be an indication of more genuine AU political willingness to end mass abuse and uphold accountability standards.

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https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/23/can-new-african-union-genocide-envoy-curb-atrocities-africa

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Top US, Sudanese generals discuss safety of Americans in call. UN and others work to extract staff

Report from Alarabiya.net

By Reuters

Published: 22 April 2023: 02:07 AM GST

Updated: 22 April 2023: 02:42 AM GST

Top US, Sudanese generals discuss safety of Americans in call

PHOTO United States Army General Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Rayburn House Office building on Capitol Hill on September 29, 2021 in Washington, DC. (AFP)

The top US general discussed the safety of Americans in Sudan during a phone call with Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, on Friday, the Pentagon said, as Washington considers a possible embassy evacuation amid fighting in Sudan’s capital.

“The two leaders discussed the safety of Americans and the developing situation in Sudan,” said a statement from Army General Mark Milley’s office. Milley is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Forces commanded by two previously allied leaders of Sudan’s ruling council began a violent power struggle last weekend. Hundreds have died so far, and a nation reliant on food aid has been tipped into what the United Nations calls a humanitarian catastrophe.

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[…] Washington has said private American citizens in Sudan should have no expectation of a US government-coordinated evacuation. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said the United States was in touch with several hundred American citizens understood to be in Sudan.

Earlier on Friday, the State Department confirmed the death of one US citizen in the country.

UN works to extract staff

Other countries and the United Nations are also looking at how they can evacuate citizens and employees.

The UN has been trying to extract staff from “very dangerous” zones in Sudan to move them to safer locations, the top UN aid official in Sudan, Abdou Dieng, said on Thursday. Dieng said he had been moved to a safer area on Wednesday.

The UN has about 4,000 staff in Sudan, of which 800 are international staff. A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were a further 6,000 UN staff family members and associated personnel in Sudan.

Switzerland said on Friday it was examining ways to evacuate nationals from Sudan, and Sweden said it will evacuate embassy staff and families as soon as possible.

Spanish military aircraft are on standby and ready to evacuate some 60 Spanish nationals and others from Khartoum, and South Korea sent a military aircraft to stand by at a US military base in Djibouti to evacuate its nationals when possible.

View original: https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2023/04/22/US-military-prepares-options-for-possible-Sudan-evacuation

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