First trial at the ICC for crimes committed in Darfur, Sudan came to an end 20 years after charged crimes

"THE first trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes committed in Darfur, Sudan, came to an end, 20 years after the charged crimes. Mr Abd-Al-Rahman is suspected of 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Darfur, Sudan.

On the second day of hearings, von Wistinghausen greeted the Darfuris watching the ICC hearings from the Kalma Camp in Darfur and across the border in Chad, in a broadcast organized by local agents of the court. “It’s on their behalf that we are addressing you,” she told the judges, adding that each of the 1,592 participating victims have “unique views, histories, sorrows and hopes”. “The victims have emphasised that the wholesale impunity for the mass crimes allegedly committed during the 2003 and 2004 conflict has permitted the very same bad actors to hold on to power and now plunge the entirety of Sudan into devastation,” she said.

“I am from the conflict zone in Darfur,” said the Sudanese journalist who attended the ICC. “I remember when they first announced the charges, the people were happy, the people were cheering because they thought the case would take a short time. But now, 20 years on, the victims are still in a very dire situation”.

Sudanese human rights defender Niemat Ahmadi, interviewed in The Hague outside of court, told Justice Info that this trial “is historic, as in Sudan we lived without seeing any officials being held accountable for crimes committed against individual citizens”. Ahmadi hopes that other trials will follow.

The closing statements in the trial took place on 11-13 December 2024.

Next steps: The judges started their deliberations and the judgment will be pronounced in due course.

Read the full story below by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and JusticeInfo.net.

_____________________________

From the International Criminal Court (ICC) website:

Abd-Al-Rahman Case

The Prosecutor v. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman ("Ali Kushayb")

ICC-02/05-01/20

Trial

In ICC custody

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman

Alleged leader of the Militia/Janjaweed, at time of warrant. Arrest warrants: 27 April 2007 and 11 June 2020

Charges: Mr Abd-Al-Rahman is suspected of 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Darfur, Sudan.

View original: https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/abd-al-rahman

_____________________________

Related report

From JusticeInfo.net
By Margherita Capacci (our correspondent in The Hague) 
Dated Thursday, 19 December 2024 - full copy:

THE FIRST DARFUR TRIAL ENDED AT THE ICC

The first trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes committed in Darfur, Sudan, came to an end, 20 years after the charged crimes. During the closing statements, from 11 to 13 December 2024, the prosecution stated that the alleged Darfur militia leader – who is said to have operated as ‘Ali Kushayb’ – has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, while the defence argued he should be acquitted of all charges. 

The trial of Sudanese Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, aged 76, ended at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday 13 December 2024. 

Photo: © ICC-CPI

“This chamber can’t turn back the clock,” said the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan, addressing the court first. The court cannot make up for the tragedies and the loss that “many have endured and continue to endure”, erase “layers of generational trauma”, and stop the conflict “that has reverberated continuously over the last 20 years.” This process can show that “the rule of law means something” and that “the craving for justice [of the victims] is not to be underestimated,” he added.

The defendant Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman is now 76 years old. He is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed between 2003 and 2004 in West Darfur, Sudan. According to the prosecution, Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as “Ali Kushayb”, was a leading member of the Janjaweed government-backed militia, which is accused of mass killings and rapes in the counterinsurgency called by former President Omar al-Bashir against rebels. He is accused of cooperating with senior government officials, including the minister of interior, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, from whom he allegedly received arms and money. The prosecution stressed the widespread and systematic nature of crimes committed against civilians of the Fur communities in Wadi Salih and Mukjar, localities of West Darfur. The list of crimes include intentional attacks on a civilian population, murder and attempted murder, looting, destruction of property and livestock, inhumane acts, outrages upon personal dignity, rape, torture, forced transfer of population, and cruel treatment.

“We proved beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is Ali Kushayb and that he was a militia leader,” said Khan, “and that he was actively involved in the commission of offences willingly and enthusiastically”. While he was armed to deal with the rebellion, civilians were targeted: “They have suffered, they’ve lost their lives, they’ve been scarred physically and emotionally in myriad different ways.” The prosecutor said their case, which included 81 witnesses, 56 heard in court and 25 testifying in the record, has proven all the charges. Khan told the judges - Joanna Korner, Reine Alapini-Gansou, and Althea Violet Alexis Windsoralks - about some of the groups who were mostly targeted, such as children who were born in displacement or as a result of rape, women who suffered from sexual violence, and the elders and community leaders who were tortured and often summarily executed. 

“FORGIVE ME FOR THIS LIE, I DON’T KNOW THAT MAN”

The defence denied their client is Ali Kushayb. Abd-Al-Rahman himself spoke at the end of the proceedings, commenting on his surrender to the ICC in 2020. “I said my name was Ali Kushayb because I waited two months in hiding and I was afraid of being arrested [after the regime fell in 2019].” He said the court only received him after he mentioned the nickname. “Forgive me for this lie, I don’t know that man”.

Around 50 people followed the hearings from the public gallery in the Hague. Many were part of the Sudanese civil society. The ICC itself supported the visit of Sudanese journalists, civil society organisations, local leaders or victims’ groups to the closing statements. “It is my first time here. It’s a good feeling, this is a good start, at least,” said a Darfuri journalist who prefers to remain anonymous for security concerns. “It sends a good message, that everyone who commits a crime will be held accountable, but we need to make more effort to bring the others to justice. He was just a commander, but the one who empowered him is still free,” he told Justice Info. Former President al-Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC since 2009, has been held in custody since he was deposed in 2019. 

In 2010, the United Nations estimated that some 300,000 people had died and 2.7 million had been displaced since the start of the conflict in 2003. In 2005, the situation in Darfur was referred to the Court by the UN Security Council and the investigation was opened afterwards. The trial began in April 2022. “Referrals should not be never-ending stories and today we are approaching [...] the end of the first chapter of a story which hopefully will vindicate the promise that has been made to victims,” said Khan.

“The suffering that they endure today is an echo of what has been subject to this particular trial,” he also underlined. Since April 2023, another civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) which is considered to have grown out of the Janjaweed militia, has devastated Sudan and especially Darfur, replicating previous crimes, such as attacks on civilians and rape as a weapon of war.

“OFTEN THE SIMPLEST IDEA IS THE CORRECT ONE”

During the first day of the closing statements, prosecutor Julian Nicholls responded to a defence argument that the government of Sudan had tried to use Abd-Al-Rahman to divert attention from al-Bashir and other higher officials – while launching an investigation against him in 2004. To Nicholls, this “was not very effective”, as Sudan did not surrender the accused to the ICC. Nicholls added that if he was framed and used as a scapegoat, “for the scope of this conspiracy to work”, it should have involved the “Sudanese justice system, Radio Dabanga, Facebook, all the prosecution witnesses…”

Defence lawyer Cyril Laucci had his lips curled into a smirk and the defendant laid back on his chair looking straight ahead, as Nicholls dismissed as “absurd” and “quite farcical” the defence line that he is not Ali Kushayb and only used this nickname to get the attention of the court when he was in danger: “often the simplest idea is the correct one, he said his nickname was Ali Kushayb because it’s the correct one,” Nicholls argued.

He added that 16 prosecution witnesses knew the accused both under his legal name and his nickname, from before and after the conflict. One of them for example, knew him from five years before the conflict and regularly visited his pharmacy in Garsila, in West Darfur. The prosecution showed a video filmed after the fall of Omar al-Bashir in 2019, where Abd-Al-Rahman addresses the crowd in his capacity of warrant officer in central reserve forces. At the end of his speech, a person is seen saluting him by saying “long live Ali Kushayb”. The prosecution also showed another video “from around 2013”, where the defendant is seen saying to a crowd of supporters that he has direct links with the president and that he had killed many people.

The defence argued that the nickname was used as a result of the arrest warrant that the ICC issued in 2007 and led Sudanese people to internalise it. Laucci accused the prosecution of “not showing reliability in proving his identity” with official civil documents. 

“STRIKING DETAINEES WITH HIS AXE”

Prosecution lawyer Edward Jeremy focused on the attacks in Kodoom and Bindisi of August 2003, where he said “the accused ordered and induced Janjaweed forces under his command to do the charged crimes”. People were murdered, tortured, chased away and their properties were burned. Rape was widespread and used “to destroy women and communities as a whole”, Jeremy added.

Abd-Al-Rahman is also accused of overseeing and being an active participant in the attacks of Mukjar and Deleig, dating back to the end of February and March 2004, where around 300 Fur men were detained and a large number of them were loaded on vehicles and summarily executed. He is accused of “striking detainees with his axe”, said prosecutor Laura Morris. She emphasised the importance of gender persecution in this case: “the fate [of the victims] was sealed because they were part of a target group for the perpetrators. The factors to identify them were: fur, male, fighting age, and from outside Mukjar. They were perceived as rebels or sympathisers”, she said, while they were only seeking refuge from the fighting.

“The evidence consistently demonstrates that Abd-Al-Rahman was the most senior Janjaweed commander in the Wadi Salih and Mukjar localities of West Darfur,” said Jeremy, adding that the defendant seemed to control around 2,500 men. The lawyer argued that he could achieve this position because of the authority he exercised in the area and his decades-long military experience. Pointing to his time in the Sudanese army and looking at the training on international humanitarian law given to army officials, Jeremy argued that the accused was aware of the illegality of his actions and “could have expected to face prosecution”.

1,592 PARTICIPATING VICTIMS

Then it was the victim's turn to speak. In a grainy video sent in October, Harun, a survivor of the alleged attacks on Bindisi, talked about the different tribes living in peace, until they turned against them with brutality: “imagine someone you know attacking you because of ethnicity.” Victims’ lawyer Natalie Von Wistinghausen added that sentencing males for the crimes against humanity of persecution on the basis of gender would be a first at the ICC.

On the second day of hearings, von Wistinghausen greeted the Darfuris watching the ICC hearings from the Kalma Camp in Darfur and across the border in Chad, in a broadcast organized by local agents of the court. “It’s on their behalf that we are addressing you,” she told the judges, adding that each of the 1,592 participating victims have “unique views, histories, sorrows and hopes”. “The victims have emphasised that the wholesale impunity for the mass crimes allegedly committed during the 2003 and 2004 conflict has permitted the very same bad actors to hold on to power and now plunge the entirety of Sudan into devastation,” she said.

Threading victims’ stories, some told first-hand through pixeled videos and some read from statements, von Wistinghausen then talked about the devastating impact of the conflict on the victims: people were uprooted from their ancestral land, women who suffered from rape often faced stigma, children starved and those who are growing up now in the camps lack education, food, and healthcare. Before the war, “life was beautiful, full of joy. Now we live scattered”, said Harun who is now displaced in Deleig, in a camp located in West Darfur. Victims’ expectations include justice, accountability, expeditious proceedings and restoration of their rights and land, concluded von Wistinghausen.

“NOT A JANJAWEED, EVEN LESS SO THEIR LEADER”

“Justice done to the victims must not be justice at the price of convicting an innocent person”, defence lawyer Laucci joined his hands solemnly and addressed the judges in French, at a pace that often left the interpreters breathless. During the rest of the second day and the morning of the third, he reiterated that “this is the story of a simple man, Abd-Al-Rahman”, an owner of a pharmacy, “nothing grandiose: four walls, a stall at the market”, who retired from the army where he served as a nurse. After the alleged events, he went back to the central reserve forces where he never rose to high ranks. “He was a small fish, what they call a ‘pound of flesh’ in The Merchant of Venice.”

According to Laucci, his client “was not a Janjaweed, even less so their leader”, and had no control over the perpetration of the charged crimes. He argued that at the time of the conflict, he was too old to take part in it, and that the leader of his tribe, the Ta’aisha, refused to join the counterinsurgency. This was led by a rival tribe that “would have rather cut his throat than have him as a leader”, said Laucci. 

The defence case had counted 20 witnesses. Many of whom came to testify that the defendant's tribe did not take part to the counterinsurgency and that Abd-Al-Rahman was a respected and respectable man who valued inter-tribal unity. Laucci said that the prosecution had failed to establish that the accused had knowledge of the law and concluded that “moral element is lacking for all crimes charges and so a total acquittal is what the chamber should come to”. 

“THE WORDS OF A SIMPLE SUDANESE CITIZEN”

After three days of sitting and listening, almost expressionless, Abd-Al-Rahman took the stand on the third day, reading from a paper he held tight. “The words of a simple Sudanese citizen who joined the army at age 15”, he said. He talked about his pharmacy, where he cured all tribes, including the Fur people, and about the counterinsurgency, which he describes as “terrifying”.

“I am from the conflict zone in Darfur,” said the Sudanese journalist who attended the ICC. “I remember when they first announced the charges, the people were happy, the people were cheering because they thought the case would take a short time. But now, 20 years on, the victims are still in a very dire situation”.

Sudanese human rights defender Niemat Ahmadi, interviewed in The Hague outside of court, told Justice Info that this trial “is historic, as in Sudan we lived without seeing any officials being held accountable for crimes committed against individual citizens”. Ahmadi hopes that other trials will follow.

View original: https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/139642-first-darfur-trial-ended-icc.html

End

Sudan: UN Security Council closed consultations may discuss measures to support protection of civilians

TOMORROW'S UN Security Council briefing and consultations "may provide a good opportunity for Council members to examine and have a frank discussion about potential measures that could be implemented to support PoC [protection of civilians] as well as assess existing strategies. 

In a communiqué adopted following a 9 October meeting, AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) members requested the AU Commission (the organisation’s secretariat) to reopen the AU liaison office in Port Sudan in order to facilitate the AU’s engagement with stakeholders in Sudan at all levels and to provide technical support to Sudan.

Amidst mounting protection concerns, several human rights organisations and Sudanese civil society actors have advocated for robust measures, including the deployment of protection forces in Sudan. The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, established by the Human Rights Council (HRC) in October 2023, recommended in its 6 September report the deployment of an independent and impartial force with a PoC mandate in Sudan.

On 18 October, the Secretary-General submitted his report (S/2024/759) pursuant to resolution 2736 of 13 June, which requested him to make recommendations for the protection of civilians (PoC) in Sudan. 

In a 25 October joint statement, officials from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF called for intensifying the international response to match the scale of rising needs in Sudan. The reality on the ground, they said, “remains fraught with logistical and administrative barriers”, which have hindered the UN’s ability to provide aid and protection to vulnerable communities as well as effectively monitor the delivery of aid. They called for simplifying and expediting approval procedures for aid shipments and personnel, including facilitating cross-line access. The officials also called for re-establishing the UN offices in Zalingei, Central Darfur, and Kadugli, South Kordofan." 

Read more from What's In Blue 

Dated Sunday, 27 October 2024 - full copy:

Sudan: Briefing and Consultations

Tomorrow morning (28 October), the Security Council will hold an open briefing, followed by closed consultations, on Sudan. The meeting is being held pursuant to resolution 2715 of 1 December 2023, which requested the Secretary-General to provide a briefing every 120 days on the “UN’s efforts to support Sudan on its path towards peace and stability”. UN Secretary-General António Guterres and a civil society representative are expected to brief in the open chamber. Director of the Operations and Advocacy Division at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Edem Wosornu and Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Sudan Ramtane Lamamra will brief in the consultations.

Eighteen months into the conflict, hostilities continue unabated as the warring parties engage in a protracted war of attrition. Over the past several weeks, fighting intensified across multiple front lines as the rainy season subsided. In September, there was a severe escalation in El Fasher—the capital of North Darfur state, which has been under siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since May—after the RSF launched a coordinated attack on the city, followed by intensive shelling and airstrikes from both sides, resulting in civilian casualties. On 26 September, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) launched an offensive in Khartoum and surrounding areas in a bid to besiege areas under RSF control, making significant advances in the ensuing days. In addition, the SAF-aligned Darfur Joint Forces (a coalition of armed movements from Darfur) engaged in fighting with the RSF on several front lines in North and West Darfur states. In the past few weeks, the SAF has reportedly been able to make strategic advances in Sennar and Al Jazira states. Media reports indicate that, on 24 October, the RSF launched a retaliatory attack on villages in East Al Jazira, following the defection to the SAF of Abu Aqla Kikal, a prominent RSF commander. While some sources report that the attack killed about 50 people, others suggest that the death toll could be much higher. (For background and more information, see the brief on Sudan in our October 2024 Monthly Forecast and listen to our 4 September podcast episode.)

Tomorrow, Guterres and several Council members are expected to condemn the ongoing violence across the country and stress the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Guterres is likely to highlight that the conflict has resulted in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Sudan and has had destabilising effects on the region. On 18 October, the Secretary-General submitted his report (S/2024/759) pursuant to resolution 2736 of 13 June, which requested him to make recommendations for the protection of civilians (PoC) in Sudan. The report describes an alarming intensification of intercommunal and identity-based violence and highlights a significant increase in human rights violations and abuses in areas under the control of both warring parties. It outlines the widespread damage and destruction of civilian infrastructure, indiscriminate attacks carried out by the warring parties in residential neighbourhoods and sites sheltering internally displaced persons (IDPs), and the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects. At tomorrow’s meeting, Guterres and several Council members are likely to emphasise the crucial need to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including healthcare facilities and medical and humanitarian personnel.

Guterres is likely to focus on the recommendations outlined in his report under three broad headings: intensifying diplomacy towards ending the fighting, changing the behaviour of the warring parties, and supporting broader protection measures. The report highlights an urgent need for a renewed diplomatic push, including through the “personal involvement” of some heads of state, to ensure that the warring parties uphold their legal obligations. It calls on the warring parties and relevant stakeholders to pursue scalable, locally negotiated ceasefires and other measures to reduce violence, protect civilians, and prevent the spread of conflict. It strongly recommends that the warring parties establish a robust and transparent compliance mechanism, as a critical step to ensure implementation of the “Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan”, which was signed by both sides in Jeddah on 11 May 2023. The report calls for an immediate cessation of the direct or indirect flow of weapons and ammunitions into Sudan, which continue to fuel the conflict. Highlighting the need to monitor violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses, the report underlines the importance of supporting and cooperating with regional and international independent investigation bodies. It further calls on the international community to provide technical and financial support to Sudanese civil society organisations and community-based initiatives.

Amidst mounting protection concerns, several human rights organisations and Sudanese civil society actors have advocated for robust measures, including the deployment of protection forces in Sudan. The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, established by the Human Rights Council (HRC) in October 2023, recommended in its 6 September report the deployment of an independent and impartial force with a PoC mandate in Sudan. Some Council members are apparently exploring options for a possible deployment of an African Union (AU)-led mission and how the mission could be supported in the context of resolution 2719 of 21 December 2023 on the financing of AU-led peace support operations (AUPSOs). The Secretary-General’s report acknowledges these calls but notes that “at present, the conditions do not exist for the successful deployment of a UN force to protect civilians” in Sudan. However, it expresses the UN Secretariat’s readiness to engage with the Council and relevant stakeholders on “operational modalities”, including localised efforts feasible under the current conditions that can contribute to effectively reducing violence and protecting civilians.

Lamamra is expected to provide an update on the ongoing regional and international initiatives aimed at resolving the crisis, his engagement with key regional and international interlocutors, and his efforts to coordinate different peace initiatives. With the mediation efforts, not having achieved any breakthrough as yet, members might be interested in hearing Lamamra’s assessment of potential next steps, including strategies for enhancing cooperation among stakeholders and addressing the underlying issues hindering the peace process. Tomorrow’s closed consultations may provide a good opportunity for Council members to examine and have a frank discussion about potential measures that could be implemented to support PoC as well as assess existing strategies.

On 3 October, AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) members undertook a field mission to Port Sudan to engage with senior officials from the Sudanese authorities and other key stakeholders. In a communiqué adopted following a 9 October meeting, AUPSC members requested the AU Commission (the organisation’s secretariat) to reopen the AU liaison office in Port Sudan in order to facilitate the AU’s engagement with stakeholders in Sudan at all levels and to provide technical support to Sudan.

Wosornu is likely to highlight the spiralling humanitarian situation in the country, especially food insecurity, and describe efforts by the UN and its partners to deliver aid across Sudan. She and several Council members are likely to reiterate the critical need to ensure full, rapid, and sustained humanitarian access through all modalities and criticise impediments to such access. They may also call on the Sudanese authorities to extend the authorisation for the use of the Adre crossing at the Chad-Sudan border for humanitarian operations, which was initially authorised on 15 August for a three-month period.

In a 25 October joint statement, officials from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF called for intensifying the international response to match the scale of rising needs in Sudan. While expressing appreciation for assurances of cooperation from the Sudanese authorities, they underlined the need to operationalise these commitments. The reality on the ground, they said, “remains fraught with logistical and administrative barriers”, which have hindered the UN’s ability to provide aid and protection to vulnerable communities as well as effectively monitor the delivery of aid. They called for simplifying and expediting approval procedures for aid shipments and personnel, including facilitating cross-line access. The officials also called for re-establishing the UN offices in Zalingei, Central Darfur, and Kadugli, South Kordofan.

Earlier this month, during negotiations on a draft press statement proposed by the UK (the penholder on Sudan), Russia apparently requested the removal of the phrase “administrative or other impediments”, arguing that it suggests that Port Sudan authorities are creating artificial barriers for aid delivery and distribution. Some members, such as France, however, contended that several obstacles remain to the delivery of aid. Continuing disagreements among members led the penholder to withdraw the draft text after four revised drafts. (For background on Council dynamics regarding the issue of humanitarian access, see the brief on Sudan in our October Monthly Forecast and 13 June What’s in Blue story.)

View original: https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/whatsinblue/2024/10/sudan-briefing-and-consultations-9.php

End

Kristof is on Chad-Sudan border: Shame of hunger belongs to those who are powerful, well fed and blind

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Longtime American columnist and Sudan watcher Nicholas Kristof is back in the saddle on the Chad-Sudan border. 

Kristof is a great storyteller who never lets a few facts get in his way. In his article below, he says a US partner, the UAE, supplies weapons to RSF militia in Sudan but omits to say the US is one of the leading arms traders to UAE. 

Trouble is, eye popping online news tends to spread quickly around the world and is viewed as fact before the truth has had time to get its boots on.

If Nicholas says (he doesn't) 150,000 died in Sudan and others say 15-23K, so be it. Readers of his news in New York Times assume NYT news is true.

In June, UN stated 15,500 fatalities reported in 1,400 incidents targeting civilians; 9.5M displaced – 7.3M internally, 1.9M in neighbouring countries.

This month, ACLED says "since fighting first broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on 15 April 2023, ACLED records over 7,623 events of political violence and more than 23,105 reported fatalities in Sudan. On 5 September 2024, ACLED released corrections to the Sudan data that updated events with fatalities in West Darfur state, as reported by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its published report titled ‘The Massalit Will Not Come Home’: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan. The new information from HRW resulted in ACLED recording 2,635 additional fatalities in West Darfur during the period of April to November 2023. For more on how ACLED incorporated the information from the HRW report, see this update in the ACLED Knowledge Base".

So, Nicholas is back on the scene. Hold onto your hats Messrs Burhan and Hemeti. Longtime Sudan watchers are alive and well. Vive la révolution! 

___________________________

 

From The New York Times

OPINION editorial by By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist, reporting from the Chad/Sudan border

Dated 18 September 2024. Here is a full copy, for the record and posterity:

I Just Went to Darfur. Here Is What Shattered Me.

Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

When an Arab militia rampaged through Maryam Suleiman’s village in the Darfur region of Sudan last year and lined up men and boys to massacre, the gunmen were blunt about their purpose.

“We don’t want to see any Black people,” a militia leader said, adding mockingly: “We don’t even want to see black trash bags.” To make his point, Maryam recalled, he shot a donkey because it was black.

Then the militia members executed men and boys who belonged to Black African ethnic groups, she said. 

“They shot my five brothers, one after the other,” Maryam told me, describing how her youngest brother survived the first bullet and called out to her. Then a militia member shot him in the head and sneeringly asked her what she thought of that.

The militia tried to systematically kill all the males over 10, Maryam said, and also killed some younger ones. A 1-day-old boy was thrown to the ground and killed, and one male infant was thrown into a pond to drown, she said.

The gunmen then rounded up the women and girls in a corral to rape, she added. “They raped many, many girls,” she recalled. One man tried to rape Maryam, she said, and when he failed he beat her. She was pregnant and suffered a miscarriage.

“You’re slaves,” Maryam quoted the militia members as saying. “There is no place for you Black people in Sudan.” So Maryam fled to neighboring Chad and is one of more than 10 million Sudanese who have been forcibly displaced since a civil war began last year in the country and ignited pogroms against Black African ethnic groups like hers.

Maryam Suleiman wept as she recounted how a militia in Sudan attacked her village and killed her five brothers. Photo Credit: Nicholas Kristof

The atrocities underway near here are an echo of the Darfur genocide of two decades ago, with the additional complication of famine. But there’s a crucial difference: At that time, world leaders, celebrities and university students vigorously protested the slaughter and joined forces to save hundreds of thousands of lives. Today, in contrast, the world is distracted and silent. So the impunity is allowing violence to go unchecked, which, in turn, is producing what may become the worst famine in half a century or more.

“It’s beyond anything we’ve ever seen,” Cindy McCain, the executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, told me. “It’s catastrophic.”

“Unless,” she added, “we can get our job done.”

World leaders will convene next week in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly, but they have been mostly indifferent and are unlikely to get the job done. What’s needed is far greater pressure to end the civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the rival Arab militia, while pushing the warring parties to allow humanitarian access. All sides in the war are behaving irresponsibly, so more than half the people of Sudan — 25 million people — have become acutely malnourished already. A famine was formally declared in one area in Sudan in the summer.

WATCH VIDEO 2:18

Nicholas Kristof on the Silent Famine in Darfur

This is what I witnessed — and it shattered me.

Timmo Gaasbeek, a disaster expert who has modeled the crisis for a research institute in the Netherlands, told me that he foresees 13 million people starving to death in Sudan by October 2025, with a margin of error of two million. Such a toll would make this one of the worst famines in world history and the worst since the great Chinese famine of 65 years ago. By way of contrast, the famous Ukraine famine of the 1930s killed perhaps four million people, although estimates vary.

I can’t verify that a cataclysm of that level is approaching. Warring parties blocked me from entering Sudanese areas they controlled, so I reported along the Chad-Sudan border. Arriving refugees described starvation but not yet mass mortality from malnutrition.

All I can say is that whether or not a cataclysmic famine is probable, it is a significant risk. Those in danger are people like Thuraya Muhammad, a slight 17-year-old orphan who told me how her world unraveled when the Rapid Support Forces, the same group that killed Maryam’s five brothers, attacked her village and began burning homes and shooting men and boys.

“So many men were killed, like grains of sand,” she told me.

When Thuraya Muhammad, an orphan because of Sudan’s war, doesn’t have enough food to feed her younger sister and brother, she gives them water to fill their stomachs. Photo Credit: Nicholas Kristof

After slaughtering the men in Thuraya’s village, the militia raped many women and girls, she said. Thuraya’s cousin, a woman of 20, was among those kidnapped by the militia and hasn’t been seen since, she added.

Thuraya’s father was murdered by the militia and her mother had died earlier, so at 16 she was now the head of the household. She led her younger brother and two younger sisters to safety by walking to the Chadian border town of Adré. Gunmen tried to rob them several times, but the family had nothing left to steal.

Now in a refugee camp in Chad, Thuraya works to feed her siblings. Like other refugees, she gets a monthly food allotment from the World Food Program that helps but is insufficient. She supports her family by seeking day jobs washing clothes or cleaning houses (for about 25 cents a day). When she finds work, she and her siblings eat; if not, they may go hungry.

When I dropped by their hut, Thuraya had been unable to find work that day. A friendly neighbor had given her a cup of coffee, but she hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day — and there was no prospect of dinner, either. If there is no food, Thuraya told me, she serves water to her siblings in place of dinner.

She wept.

Thuraya wasn’t crying from her own pangs of hunger. Rather, tears tumbled silently down her cheeks out of shame at her inability to feed her brother and sisters.

“When there isn’t enough food, I give it to my sisters and brother,” she told me, and her younger sister Fatima confirmed that. “I go hungry, or else my neighbors may call me over to eat with them.”

“I’d rather my sisters and brother eat, because they cry when they go hungry,” she said. “And I can’t bear to hear them cry.”

Fatima resists the favoritism and tries to give her sister back some food. But Thuraya won’t take it and goes out, telling her brother and sisters to eat while she finds something for herself. They all know that in a refugee camp of about 200,000 hungry people, she will find nothing.

I’m hoping that Thuraya’s fortitude might inspire President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, along with world leaders gathering at the United Nations, to summon a similar resolve to tackle slaughter and starvation in Sudan. Donor nations have contributed less than half the sum needed by U.N. agencies to ease Sudan’s food crisis, and they have not insisted forcefully on either providing humanitarian access or on cutting off the flow of weapons that sustains the war.

Biden, who 20 years ago savaged President George W. Bush for not doing enough to stop the Darfur genocide, has provided aid and appointed a special envoy to push for peace talks but has said little about the current crisis. An American partner, the United Arab Emirates, supplies weapons to the militia that slaughtered and raped Thuraya’s neighbors, yet Biden has not publicly demanded that the Emirates cut off that support for killers and rapists.

The upshot of this neglect is the risk not only of a horrendous famine but also of endless war, Sudan’s fragmentation, enormous refugee flows and instability across the region.

So as world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly tuck into fine banquets next week to celebrate their humanitarianism, may they be awakened by thoughts of an orphan of Darfur who ignores her own hunger and divides scraps of bread among her brother and sisters.

Thuraya has no reason to feel ashamed that her siblings are hungry; the shame belongs to those who are powerful, well fed and blind.

What question do you have about the civil war in Sudan and the people affected by it? What more would you like to know? Submit your question or critique in the field below and Nicholas Kristof will try to respond to a selection of queries in a future installment in this series.

Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Chad and Sudan? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

View original (currently a free gift unlocked article): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/opinion/darfur-sudan-famine.html

End