Call for sanctions amid claims of ethnic cleasing in Sudan's West Darfur

Militias in Sudan killed thousands of people – including children – during a wave of violence last year in West Darfur, the NGO Human Rights Watch said as it accused armed groups of crimes against humanity and genocide.

Attacks by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias in and around West Darfur's capital, El Geneina, amount to ethnic cleansing against the Massalit and other non-Arab populations, according to a HRW report published Thursday.

Evidence compiled between April and November 2023 documents instances of torture, rape and looting mainly in neighbourhoods belonging to the Masalit tribe, with abuses escalating again in early November. 

HRW wants the UN and the African Union to impose an arms embargo on Sudan and sanction those responsible for the crimes, including the RSF leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who is widely known as Hemedti.

HRW also wants a military presence in the region to protect civilians.

“The large-scale atrocities committed in El Geneina should be seen as a reminder of the atrocities that could come in the absence of concerted action,” Tirana Hassan, HRW's executive director, warned. 

Between June 2023 and April 2024, HRW employees interviewed more than 220 people in Chad, Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan. 

Researchers also analysed more than 120 photos and videos of the events, satellite imagery, and documents shared by humanitarian organisations to corroborate accounts of grave abuses which the RSF denies.

Targeting civilians

The violence in El Geneina began on 24 April 2023 – nine days after fighting broke out in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF.

The RSF clashed with a Sudanese military convoy travelling through El Geneina. Then the RSF and its allied groups attacked Massalit neighbourhoods, clashing with predominantly Massalit armed groups defending their communities.

Over the following weeks – and even after Massalit armed groups lost control of their neighbourhoods – the RSF and allied militias systematically targeted unarmed civilians, says the report.

The violence culminated in a massacre on 15 June, when the RSF and its allies opened fire on a convoy of civilians trying to flee.

Witness accounts say the RSF and militias pursued, rounded up and shot men, women and children who ran through the streets or tried to swim across the Kajja River. Many drowned. Older people and injured people were not spared.

A 17 year old boy described the killing of 12 children and five adults from several families: “Two RSF forces … grabb[ed] the children from their parents and, as the parents started screaming, two other RSF forces shot the parents, killing them."

"Then they piled up the children and shot them. They threw their bodies into the river and their belongings in after them.”

Ongoing attacks

The assaults continued on tens of thousands of civilians who tried to cross into Chad, leaving the countryside strewn with bodies. Videos published at the time show crowds of civilians running for their lives on the road linking El Geneina to Chad.

HRW also documented the killing of Arab residents and the looting of Arab neighbourhoods by Massalit forces as well as the SAF's use of explosive weapons in populated areas in ways that caused unnecessary harm to civilians and civilian objects.

The RSF and allied militias escalated their attacks again in November, targeting Massalit people who had found refuge in the El Geneina suburb of Ardamata, rounding up Massalit men and boys and, according to the UN, killing at least 1,000 people.

Women and girls were raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence, the report says.

The acts were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the Massalit and other non-Arab civilian populations of Massalit-majority neighbourhoods and include crimes against humanity, HRW said.

Action demanded

The report requested "urgent action" from governing bodies worldwide, including an investigation into the intent of the RSF and allies to commit genocide. 

"If so, they should act to prevent its further perpetration, and to ensure those responsible for its planning and conduct are brought to justice," it added. 

Last month French President Emmanuel Macron chaired an international conference to address the conflict in Sudan that raised more than €2 billion in aid.

"It is a conflict imposed on the people that only produces grief and suffering, provoking one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world," Macron said during the conference.

"It is our duty was to show that we are not forgetting what is going on in Sudan and there are no double standards as the world focuses on other crises."

Despite Macron's overtures, HRW says governments are failing to back up their words.

“The global inaction in the face of atrocities of this magnitude is inexcusable,” Hassan said.

“Governments should ensure those responsible are held to account, including through targeted sanctions and by stepping up cooperation with the International Criminal Court."

(with newswires)