View original: https://x.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1889673016075751861#Sudan 🇸🇩: horrible footage from the Zamzam camp for the internally displaced in the city of #ElFasher, where relentless shelling by the #RSF had caused part of the camp to catch fire.
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) February 12, 2025
Thousands of families are forced to abandon what little they have and be displaced once again. pic.twitter.com/Ofk7zzNq4l
THE International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Mr Karim Khan KC issued an urgent appeal today (Tuesday, 11 June 2024) in The Hague for information and evidence of atrocities in Darfur, Sudan, saying his ongoing investigation “seems to disclose an organised, systematic and a profound attack on human dignity.” Mr Khan called on international organisations, partners and national authorities to collect evidence and information and hand it over to him. View the appeal on video and two reports here below.
Provide evidence and information to the ICC here: https://otplink.icc-cpi.int
Note, Subtitles for this video can be viewed in different languages: click on above video, click on wheel "Settings", click on "Subtitles", click on "Auto translate", scroll "list of languages", click on language, desired Subtitles will appear at bottom of video. Size of font for Subtitles can be adjusted: click on wheel "Settings", click on "Subtitles", click on "Options" in top right corner. Playback speed for audio and Subtitles can be adjusted: click on wheel "Settings", click on "Playback speed", select speed.
Also, follow along using a Transcript here: https://youtu.be/2D2DYptFW8st
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Report from The Washington Post
By MIKE CORDER, AP (The Associated Press)
Dated Tuesday, 11 June 2024 5:08 am EDT. Here is a full copy:
ICC prosecutor appeals for evidence of atrocities in Sudan after rebels attack hospital in Darfur
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor is appealing for information and evidence of atrocities in Sudan’s western Darfur region
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor appealed Tuesday for information and evidence of atrocities in Sudan, saying his ongoing investigation “seems to disclose an organized, systematic and a profound attack on human dignity.”
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan released a video statement in the aftermath of an attack Sunday by the notorious Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group that forced the closure of a main hospital in the western Darfur region. The group fired shots and looted the hospital in al-Fasher, aid group Doctors Without Borders reported.
The attack came as the RSF, which has been fighting the Sudanese army for a year, intensified its offensive seeking to wrest control of the city, the military’s last stronghold in the sprawling Darfur region. Two weeks of fighting last month in and around al-Fasher has killed more than 120 people.
“The terrible events in West Darfur, including El-Geneina, in 2023 are among our key investigative priorities,” Khan said. “In addition, I am extremely concerned about allegations of widespread international crimes being committed in al-Fasher and its surrounding areas as I speak.”
A long-running conflict
Sudan’s conflict began in April last year when soaring tensions between the leaders of the military and the RSF erupted into fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.
The war has killed more than 14,000 people and wounded thousands more, while pushing its population to the brink of famine. The U.N. food agency warned the warring parties last month that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the region.
The war also created the world’s largest displacement crisis as more than 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes, including over 2 million people who crossed into neighboring countries, the U.N. migration agency told The Associated Press Monday.
Khan said he is urgently investigating in Sudan.
“The evidence my office has collected to date seems to show credible, repeated, expanding, continuous allegations of attacks against the civilian population, in particular, attacks directed against camps for internally displaced persons,” he said.
“It seems to show the widespread, prevalent use of rape and other forms of sexual violence. It seems to disclose consistently the shelling of civilian areas, the looting of properties and attacks against hospitals,” he added, stressing that he was “particularly concerned by the ethnically motivated nature of these attacks against the Masalit and other communities.”
The ICC already has an ongoing investigation in Sudan
The ICC has long been investigating atrocities in Sudan, dating back to a previous devastating conflict in Darfur. The court has issued arrest warrants for former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges including genocide allegedly committed in Darfur between 2003-2008.
The RSF was born out of Arab militias, commonly known as Janjaweed, mobilized by al-Bashir against non-Arab tribes in Darfur. At the time, they were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities, and Darfur became synonymous with genocide.
Khan referred back to the previous conflict in his message Tuesday.
“It is an outrage that we are allowing history to repeat itself once again in Darfur,” he said. “We cannot and we must not allow Darfur to become the world’s forgotten atrocity, once again.”
Photo [not shown here] caption: FILE - Sudanese soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces unit, led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy head of the military council, secure the area where Dagalo attends a military-backed tribe’s rally, in the East Nile province, Sudan, on June 22, 2019. The RSF, attacked the South Hospital in al-Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur province on Sunday, June 9, 2024 opening fire on medical staff and patients, Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
View original: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/11/sudan-icc-investigation-khan-rsf-darfur/2e3324a8-27d2-11ef-835a-2a6acac1f8a6_story.html
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Further Reading
From International Organisation for Migration (IOM) 11 June 2024:
DTM Sudan Mobility Update (02). IOM, Sudan
This report provides an overview of the total population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sudan, including those displaced both before and after the onset of conflict on 15 April 2023.
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UPDATE by Sudan Watch Editor
On Wednesday, 12 June 2024 at 15:26 GMT:
The above video can be viewed at X in post by ICC 8:45AM June 11, 2024.
#ICC Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC announces campaign calling for information and cooperation in relation to allegations of international crimes being committed in #Darfur, Sudan, including in Al Fasher.
— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) June 11, 2024
Info can be sent to #OTPLink:https://t.co/IYVUCvyWCA
Watch 👇 pic.twitter.com/H1sMPGB8jP
END
Some 800,000 people inside Al-Fashir city have no escape route from incoming attacks by the Rapid Support Forces' Janjaweed as violence in Sudan spreads.
Photo: Rival military groups have uprooted millions in Sudan and left the country in a dangerous humanitarian crisis [Getty]
The capital of the Sudanese state North Darfur is facing an imminent catastrophe that is threatening some 800,000 people, as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) closes in on the last stronghold of rival Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) following weeks of battles.
Sudanese activists and international researchers warned on Thursday that the city of Al-Fashir is "about to be under siege" as the RSF gains ground in the surrounding province, terrorising villages and conducting intense bombing campaigns against the Sudanese army.
RSF is attempting to gain control of the city from the SAF and have begun closing in with its troops preparing for a full-scale invasion, according to researchers.
Al-Fashir is the last major city in the huge western Darfur region not yet under the control of the RSF which has taken control of four other Darfur state capitals over the past year. Some 700,000 internally displaced people fled to camps in Al-Fashir having escaped violence in other regions.
The latest round of violence began in the African country in April 2023 and snowballed into a civil war when long-simmering tensions between the military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the RSF paramilitary commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, broke out into street battles in the capital, Khartoum.
The RSF has been blamed for mass killings of civilians - which are often ethnically driven - and numerous human rights violation, including terrifying levels of sexual violence.
The war has uprooted swathes of the population and humanitarian workers have described the conditions as among the worst in the world.
The UN said that some 20 million people in Sudan are struggling to find enough food to eat and that famine is now widespread.
Last week, UN officials warned the Security Council that 800,000 people in Al-Fashir were in "extreme and immediate danger" as fighting was moving closer.
[HERE is a copy of a post at X by Radio Dabanga English 5:42PM April 25, 2024: "Refugees International warns of imminent #RSF attacks on #El Fasher in #NorthDarfur, home to 800,000 civilians. Immediate action needed #SudanNews #KeepEyesOnSudan #sudan_war_updates"]
Refugees International warns of imminent #RSF attacks on #El Fasher in #NorthDarfur, home to 800,000 civilians. Immediate action needed #SudanNews #KeepEyesOnSudan #sudan_war_updates https://t.co/ZheRag22iH
— Radio Dabanga (@RadioDabanga) April 25, 2024
There are fears fighting in the city could trigger inter-communal violence throughout the Darfur province which surfaced during conflicts in the 2000s, and could spill into neighbouring Chad.
Adam Mousa, director of Darfur Victims Support and Sudan Defenders, said that in April the RSF and aligned Arab militias fought with the Sudanese army and attacked 15 villages in the east of Darfur, forcing thousands to flee to al-Shagra town and the Zamzam displacement camp in Al-Fashir.
"Most of the displaced have no water, food or medicine, and at the same time the attacks are continuing," Mousa said during an online media briefing on Thursday which included activists, Sudanese civilians, researchers, and aid workers.
Mousa, who is from Darfur, said his organisation has requested to begin a ceasefire initiative and sent letters to SAF and RSF and are "waiting for a response".
Some eleven villages there have been burnt in recent days, according to Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health.
It has been challenging for journalists and humanitarians to gain on the ground access since the outbreak of war and as a result, observers have been relying on open-source intelligence to track the conflict.
Raymond's Humanitarian Research Lab has been closely documenting the RSF and SAF movements using open-source data and satellite imagery, and last week sounded the alarm to the international community about RSF’s imminent attack on Al-Fashir.
"We have a city about to be under siege," Raymond said.
RSF fighters are about eight kilometres from the main SAF infantry base and open-source reports and imagery collected in the past day shows RSF fighters moving on the city from multiple directions, Raymond explained.
"The situation for those in Al-Fashir will likely get significantly worse in the coming hours and days," he said.
"At this point, civilians and the Sudan Armed Forces do not have a clear escape route to exit Al Fashir. We call this phenomenon, in our business, a kill box.
"The space for intervention is probably gone," he added.
Raymond fears that if the RSF behave in line with the mass atrocities conducted over the past year, the number of casualties in the region could exceed the 110,000 deaths of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
It is estimated that some 14,000 people have been killed in the war since last April, though some projections are far larger.
The RSF, which is formed of Janjaweed fighters aligned with former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, have conducted ruthless campaigns against civilians and there are fears they will conduct massacres in Al-Fashir.
There have been widespread human rights violations documented by RSF fighters, including cases of sexual violence against women and girls.
Allegations of rape, forced marriage, sex trafficking in Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofan have been recorded. Rights groups say the truce scale of the crisis remains unknown due to underreporting and fear of reprisals.
Some 1.1 million people are internally displaced in Sudan while more than 3 million are refugees in neighbouring Chad, Eritrea and Egypt, according to figures from the UN refugee agency.
Hala Al-Karib, Sudan Regional Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, said that the anticipated invasion of Al-Fashir has been a "ticking time bomb" considering the number of local militias present in the city.
She said the city has been an important hub for activists and human rights defenders and hosts many displaced families. The only hospital in Sudan for survivors of sexual violence is in the city, Al-Karib said.
The war has taken a spiral in recent months due to foreign interference, which observers say has prolonged the conflict and fuelled new levels of danger.
RSF's leader is reportedly receiving support from Russian mercenaries and allied Arab communities coming from the Horn of Africa, as well as Libya.
US officials recently said the UAE was providing financial and military support to RSF, which has been accused of committing crimes against humanity. Iran and Egypt are believed to be supporting Sudan's army with military drones.
Earlier this month, France hosted a donor aid conference to mark one year since the outbreak of war and garner much needed attention to the humanitarian disaster.
Western officials are seeking an end to the fighting through diplomacy, but critics say it has done little to defuse the violence.
View original: https://www.newarab.com/news/mass-casualties-feared-rsf-encircles-sudans-al-fashir
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Related
Sudan Watch - February 28, 2020
Sudan: RSF to turn Zurrug, N Darfur into a dream city
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2023/10/sudan-rsf-to-turn-zurrug-n-darfur-into.html
Sudan Watch - March 02, 2024
Sudan: In Zamzam camp, North Darfur, the death rate is catastrophic. At least 1 child dies every 2 hours
Malnutrition and disease are rife at the ‘overwhelmed’ Zamzam camp, a host to 300,000 internally displaced people, one of hundreds in Sudan, where war has displaced nearly 8 million people. The scale is simply terrifying. Zamzam is just one camp. There are hundreds of others in Sudan.
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2024/03/sudan-in-zamzam-camp-north-darfur-death.html
Sudan Watch - March 13, 2024
Sudan: 3.9M people food insecure in Khartoum state.
Khartoum's partly a ghost town, only 20-30% remain
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2024/03/sudan-39m-people-food-insecure-in.html
Sudan Watch - March 14, 2024
South Sudan Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala: Our people ‘on brink of destitution, slowly perishing’
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2024/03/south-sudan-bishop-eduardo-hiiboro.html
Sudan Watch - March 17, 2024
Ali Karti, SG of Sudan’s Islamic Movement, widely seen as a mastermind of Sudan's war, has now announced a truce with RSF will never be accepted
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2024/03/ali-karti-sg-of-sudans-islamic-movement.html
Sudan Watch - March 29, 2024
UK CHANNEL 4 NEWS VIDEO FROM CHAD-SUDAN.
UK doubles its aid to Sudan to £89m as crisis escalates
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2024/03/uk-channel-4-news-video-from-chad-sudan.html
Sudan Watch - April 06, 2024
SAVE SUDAN. STOP WAR IN SUDAN.
Tagadum coalition unveils vision to end war and rebuild state
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2024/04/save-sudan-stop-war-in-sudan-tagadum.html
Sudan Watch - April 21, 2024
VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT:
Situation in Sudan ‘probably the most disastrous in the world’ says ex-PM Hamdok
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2024/04/video-transcript-situation-in-sudan.html
Sudan Watch - April 22, 2024
Sudan: SpaceX to shut off Starlink access for users outside availability areas by 30 April 2024
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2024/04/sudan-spacex-to-shut-off-starlink.html
Sudan Watch - April 24, 2024
Sudan: Displacement and recent clashes in North Darfur, Apr 01 - Apr 17 2024 & Apr 14 - Apr 16 2024
https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2024/04/sudan-displacement-and-recent-clashes.html
CSIS - April 25, 2024
Preventing Another Darfur Genocide
https://www.csis.org/analysis/preventing-another-darfur-genocide
Radio Dabanga - April 25, 2024
Int’l NGO: ‘UNSC needs to urgently intervene in North Darfur’
Refugees International, a prominent INGO, issued a grave warning on Tuesday indicating that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are about to launch imminent attacks on the city of El Fasher, North Darfur, home to 800,000 civilians, which requires urgent action.
END
