Campaigns by civilians and SAF to designate Sudan’s RSF janjaweed militia as a terrorist organisation

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Today, I signed the below mentioned petition calling for Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to be designated a terrorist organisation. I signed it hoping to help eradicate poverty, extreme poverty and suffering in Sudan, South Sudan and neighbouring countries. 

In Sudan, the RSF are trapping civilians in villages in RSF controlled areas by surrounding them and cutting off access to food and medicines, forcing them to drink water from the Nile, using them as human shields to protect themselves and deter bombings by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

It must be noted that the SAF are responsible for many atrocities since the start of the Darfur rebellion in 2003. SAF chief Gen. Burhan’s dereliction of duty caused 120 peaceful protestors to be slain on the streets of Khartoum. 

*The "killing of at least 120 pro-democracy protesters in 2019 were a flashpoint between activists and the military. Sudanese pro-democracy protesters demanded the Transitional Military Council hand over power to civilians, but they were attacked by the military on June 3, 2019.

The killings, carried out by military forces in an effort to disperse a sit-in calling for civilian rule and democracy, marked a pivotal moment for Sudan after the April 2019 overthrow of former President Omar al-Bashir.”

*Read full story at Al Jazeera, 3 June 2024, here:

What was the ‘Khartoum Massacre’ marked by Sudan’s activists?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/3/what-was-the-khartoum-massacre-marked-by-sudans-activists

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Related Report

From Middle East Monitor

By Mohamed Suliman

Dated 06 November 2024 - excerpt:

There is a strong case for designating Sudan’s RSF militia as a terrorist organisation

A view of streets as clashes continue between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) despite the agreement on cease fire in Khartoum, Sudan on April 30, 2023 

[Ömer Erdem/Anadolu Agency]

Recently, there have been several social media campaigns and online petitions that call for the RSF’s designation. Individuals who are participating in these campaigns are sharing examples of incidents that expose how the RSF Janjaweed militia is attacking and harassing them. All of these grassroots initiatives demonstrate the public support for a terrorist designation of the militia”. 

Such a move will send a strong signal that the world rejects it and that the RSF can’t be part of Sudan’s political future. Moreover, it will have a practical impact on limiting the arms supply and funding from countries that back the militia, such as the UAE, which will be legally obliged to abstain from this destructive role.

Read more (and see its pale green share this icon to see dozens of ways to repost the article containing news of the campaigns and online petitions) here: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241106-there-is-a-strong-case-for-designating-sudans-rsf-militia-as-a-terrorist-organisation/

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POSTSCRIPT from Sudan Watch Editor

Here is a comment by Musaab Yousif posted at above article 25 days ago. It tells a story almost identical to the one I've heard from someone in Sudan with family trapped inside a village surrounded by RSF and cut off from essential supplies and medicines, drinking polluted water from the Nile.

"The people of Hilaliya village in aljazeera state more than 3000 civilians including womens, children's, elders and peoples with chronic sickness are being held in three mosques a few meters away from their homes by RSF militia and are completely forbidden from reaching them. They are being ravaged by cholera, watery diarrhea, hunger and thirst... no medicine or food in a complete war crime by the RSF militia, in addition to the crimes of murder, looting and other violations committed by the militia against defenseless civilians to any one trying to get out .

#Save_Hilaliya_from_Janjaweed

#Rapid_Support_is_a_terrorist_organization"

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Weekly Sudan Updates

From journalist Abdallah Hussain posted at LinkedIn on 1 Dec 2024: 

🔴 Former Political Advisor to RSF Commander, Youssef Ezzat [pictured above]: The Islamic Movement is managing political and civil affairs in all areas under the control of the Rapid Support Forces with full authorization from the leadership.

🔴 Sovereign Council Chairman Al-Burhan denies rumors of political settlements, emphasizing no agreement with any entity. 

🔴 Health crisis deepens in Khartoum, with 73 out of 80 private hospitals out of service, according to the Sudanese Doctors Network.

🔴 Gunmen hijack a UNICEF truck in eastern Nile Khartoum carrying medicines and medical supplies.

🔴 Heavy artillery shelling shakes Omdurman’s Thawrat neighborhoods as early morning attacks continue. 

🔴 5 civilians injured following militia shelling in Karrari, Omdurman, as health authorities report more unregistered cases.

🔴 The Nile River State Security Committee denies reports of launching drones from residential areas near Atbara, labeling them as misinformation. 

🔴 Minister of Culture and Information Khalid Al-Ayser discusses plans to reform Sudanese media institutions and improve public messaging.

🔴 Broadcasting Authority reports $16 billion in losses due to militia attacks, with Minister Khalid Al-Ayser calling for international condemnation.

🔴 The Sudanese Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) for its recent allegations:

“We condemn the unfounded accusations and extreme bias against the government and the armed forces by the NRC.”

“The NRC Secretary-General unjustly implicated the armed forces in using starvation as a weapon and blocking humanitarian aid — a crime solely committed by the RSF militias.”

“The Secretary-General failed to name those responsible for destroying villages, employing scorched-earth policies, committing mass rapes, and other atrocities, which are well-documented crimes of the RSF militias.”

“The NRC’s Country Director in Sudan claimed before the UK’s House of Commons that humanitarian work regulations in Sudan are designed to obstruct aid delivery to those in need.”

“This aggressive stance by the NRC represents the worst example of politicizing humanitarian work and an attempt to tarnish the Sudanese government’s image internationally.”

🔴 The Federal Ministry of Health reported a rise in HIV/AIDS cases in Sudan, with 48,000 infections recorded. Of these, 19,549 individuals are aware of their condition, but only 8,607 are receiving treatment. The disease has caused 2,300 deaths. Minister Dr. Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim warned that the numbers could increase further due to violations by the RSF, including sexual assaults.

Source: Abdallah Hussain, LinkedIn

Bilingual Journalist | News Anchor | TV Host | News Correspondent | Content Creator

End

Sudan: RSF aren't just at war with SAF, they're at war with civilians. People think SAF can’t protect them

“The calls to get armed are not coming from the army. They’re mostly coming from civilians themselves,“ al-Sadig, told Al Jazeera. Sulieman Baldo, the founder of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker think tank, believes arming young men is irresponsible. “For me, these young recruits are really cannon fodder for ideological reasons,” he told Al Jazeera. “Sudan’s [political] Islamic movement is pushing for this kind of mobilisation in areas that are beyond the RSF’s control.” Read more.

Report from Al Jazeera
By Mat Nashed
Dated Sunday, 24 December 2023 - here is a copy in full:

Sudan’s civilians pick up arms, as RSF gains and army stumbles

Young men are grabbing weapons to fight with the army, defend their cities, raising fears of deepening ethnic conflict.

Sudanese military soldiers wave the Sudanese flag and hold up their weapons during the visit of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (not seen) in Heglig on April 23, 2012 [Reuters]

When the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) called on young men to enlist last June, Zakariya Issa* went to the nearest recruitment centre. He was one of thousands of young people who trained for 10 weeks in Wad Madani, a city just south of the capital Khartoum.

In September, he was deployed with 500 people to fight the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a group stronger than the army and backed by the United Arab Emirates. Many of his friends and peers were killed or wounded within a couple of weeks.

“I lost five of my friends,” Issa, 20, told Al Jazeera from Saudi Arabia, where he now lives. “They were more than friends. They were my brothers.”

The Sudanese army and allied groups are relying on young men with little or no military training to fight as foot soldiers against the RSF. Over the past week, recruitment has picked up across River Nile State since the RSF captured Wad Madani, Sudan’s second-largest city.

River Nile state is a traditionally privileged region that has produced many of the political and military elites in Sudan’s modern history. But now, army officers and figures from Sudan’s political Islamic movement, which ruled for 30 years under former autocratic president Omar al-Bashir, are calling on young men from this region to thwart the RSF.

New recruits told Al Jazeera that they are motivated to pick up weapons due to the risk that the RSF could attack their cities, loot their belongings and subject women to sexual violence.

Most view the RSF – which is primarily made up of tribal nomadic fighters from Sudan’s neglected province of Darfur – as invaders and occupiers. While the group has evicted thousands of people from their homes, army supporters are also exploiting ethnic undertones to recruit young men.

“I picked up a gun to defend myself, my ethnic group and my homeland,” said Yaser, 21, from Shendi, a city in River Nile State where thousands of people have reportedly picked up weapons in recent days.

“The RSF are not just at war with the army. They are at war with civilians,” he told Al Jazeera.

‘Cannon fodder’: Civilians arming themselves

After Wad Madani fell to the RSF, civilians across eastern and northern Sudan were devastated. The city was a haven for internally displaced people who fled Khartoum and surrounding towns earlier in the war. They are now on the move again.

“People mostly think that the army can’t protect them now,” said Suleiman al-Sadig,* a lawyer from Atbara, a city in River Nile State.

Recent RSF advances have compounded the panic. Photos and videos surfacing across social media show what appear to be children and young men arming themselves in River Nile State. According to residents and journalists, some of those recruits have gone to Wad Madani to fight the RSF, while others are staying behind in case of an attack.

The video from Al Matama shows SAF commanders arming kids/teens. At least they look like kids to me. This is both insane and negligent on so many levels. #KeepEyesOnSudan pic.twitter.com/JelIxVwdT6

— s🌻 (@justshayxo) December 21, 2023

“The calls to get armed are not coming from the army. They’re mostly coming from civilians themselves,“ al-Sadig, told Al Jazeera.

Sulieman Baldo, the founder of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker think tank, believes arming young men is irresponsible.

“For me, these young recruits are really cannon fodder for ideological reasons,” he told Al Jazeera. 

“Sudan’s [political] Islamic movement is pushing for this kind of mobilisation in areas that are beyond the RSF’s control.”

In one photo on social media, which Al Jazeera could not independently verify, one of the young recruits is seen captured by the RSF and tied to the windshield of a car.

A former soldier, who is in close contact with officers in the army, added that new recruits are often the first people to die in battle.

“They have no combat or military background and they just carry weapons. They die quickly,” he told Al Jazeera.

Ethnic targeting

Over the last two decades, River Nile State has attracted many young men from Arab and non-Arab tribes in search of work and stability. Many were uprooted by the state-backed Arab tribal militias – later repackaged as the RSF – which crushed a mostly non-Arab rebellion in Darfur in 2003.

These young men are now being accused of spying on behalf of the RSF based on their ethnicity and tribal affiliations. According to local monitors, many have been arrested, tortured and even killed by military intelligence and by civilians carrying arms in northeastern cities.

On December 19, Zeinab Noon* spoke with her male cousins who are all between the ages of 16 and 20. They told her that they captured RSF spies in Shendi.

“[They said] they’re torturing them, so there is a sense of paranoia,” Noon, who lives outside of Sudan, told Al Jazeera. “I don’t think they know [for sure if they’re really spies].”

The Darfur Network for Human Rights (DNHR), a local monitoring group, said in a statement that these attacks are “linked to incitement to ethnic violence” in River Nile cities.

Jawhara Kanu, a Sudanese expert with the United States Institute for Peace, said that the ethnically targeted attacks risk pushing vulnerable people from Darfur and Kordofan, a province in central Sudan, into the arms of the RSF.

“These people are going to find themselves in a situation where they are going to be tortured [by parties aligned] with SAF unless they choose to join the RSF for protection.”

Ending the war

Despite growing calls to bear arms, some activists are pushing for an end to the war and for young men not to fight. So far, their efforts appear to be in vain, according to al-Sadig from Atbara.

He said that there was a protest held in his city on December 23. Young men were demanding that the governor arm them, so that they could defend their city and join the army in battles across the country.

RSF abuses in Wad Madani are also fuelling calls for mobilisation. More than 300,000 people are fleeing the city, mostly on foot. RSF fighters are also reportedly looting cars, hospitals, homes and markets, adding to a hunger crisis.

In one video circulating on social media and which Al Jazeera could not independently verify, an RSF fighter declares that it is “his right” to rape women in cities he conquers.

Al-Sadig says that news of abuses travels wide and is terrifying civilians in the River Nile region.

“Every single day, young men are being told by people in their community that the RSF is going to come and get you and that they will take your homes, kill your children and rape your women,” he told Al Jazeera.

Non-violent activists like al-Sadig hope that the war will stop soon. On December 22, local media reported that top army chief Abdel Fatah al-Burhan had agreed to sit down with RSF leader Mohamad Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.

While an agreement could spare Sudan further bloodshed, al-Sadig is waiting to see where the RSF attacks next. He told Al Jazeera that he will pick up a weapon if he has to.

“I don’t want to pick up arms. But if the RSF targets my home, or my children or my wife, then of course I will defend them,” he said.

*Some names have been changed for safety reasons. 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

View original: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/24/sudans-civilians-pick-up-arms-as-rsf-gains-and-army-stumbles

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