Newly arrived Sudanese refugees cook food over fires outside their makeshift shelters after dark ... [+]
One year after the devastating war in Sudan began, the situation continues to receive very little attention. The same can be said about Darfur - a region which is experiencing its second genocide in two decades - and yet another genocide that is ignored by the international community.
The first genocide in Darfur goes back to 2003. Beginning in 2003, the Government of Sudan and an Arab militia active in Sudan, particularly in the Darfur region, Janjaweed, systematically attacked non-Arab communities, primarily the Masalit, Fur, Barti and Zaghawa, burning entire villages, and committing systematic murder, rape, and displacement — all under the false pretext of targeting rebels. Despite clear evidence, the international community largely failed to take concrete measures to protect the populations at risk.
In March 2005, the U.N. Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor for investigations into allegations of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was the first time the U.N. Security Council successfully referred a situation to the ICC. In 2009 and 2010, the ICC issued arrest warrants for former Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir. Omar Al-Bashir was the first sitting President to be wanted by the ICC, and the first person to be charged by the ICC for the crime of genocide. Neither of the two warrants of arrest against him have been enforced and he remains “at large.”
In 2013, the Janjaweed transitioned to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) when former President Omar Al-Bashir sought to give the group institutional legitimacy as an independent security force. The RSF’s current commander, Hemedti, is a former Janjaweed leader.
After civil war erupted in Sudan in April 2023, the situation in Darfur deteriorated significantly. In August 2023, U.N. experts reported on the brutal and widespread use of rape and other forms of sexual violence by the RSF and identified women and girls held in chains in “slave-like conditions” under RSF control in Darfur. Subsequent months have seen several warnings being issued by civil society organizations about the signs of genocide and other atrocity crimes.
And while the world remains silent, evidence of the horrific atrocities continues to be brought to light. Among others, in May 2024, Human Rights Watch published a report detailing the massacres of civilians as they were fleeing an ethnic rampage in Darfur in 2023. The report is based on interviews with a total of 221 people, including 174 residents of El Geneina and surrounding villages who witnessed abuses in the city and on the road to Chad between April and July 2023, and analysis of relevant videos, photographs, and satellite imagery.
Interviewees told Human Rights Watch of seeing a total of 210 children killed and 50 injured. Based on the testimonies, Human Rights Watch assessed that children were killed in both targeted and indiscriminate attacks, “including in attacks in which heavy explosive weapons were used—as they sought shelter in homes, displacement camps and gathering sites, and as they fled.”
One of the witnesses, a teenage boy, testified how RSF forces killed at least 12 young children, including infants, three men, and two women, stating that “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.”
In April 2024, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights released the first independent inquiry into breaches of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention) in the Darfur region of Sudan in 2023-2024. The report concludes that, first, the RSF and allied militias have committed and are committing genocide against the Masalit. Second, the RSF is responsible for direct and public incitement to genocide. Third, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Russia (via the Wagner group), Chad, the Central African Republic, and Libya are complicit in, and fueling, this genocide providing the RSF with extensive financial, political, and military support. Fourth, the international community as a whole is obligated to end complicity in and halt the genocide. Despite these concerning findings, States and the international community more broadly continue to ignore the issue.
The situation in Darfur deteriorates by the day as the world watches by and chooses to be silent. Darfur deserves better responses and responses that are fully aligned with States responses under the Genocide Convention. The international community must be consistent with its responses to atrocity crimes globally rather than picking and choosing which situations “deserve” attention and which situations are expendable. Victims and survivors deserve better responses.
