An international rights group has shared insights into one of the worst atrocities of the year-long Sudanese civil conflict, shedding light on the widespread killing of civilians attempting to escape the ethnic rampage in Darfur last summer.
The series of attacks by the Sudanese paramilitary forces in Darfur raises the possibility of "genocide" against non-Arab ethnic communities, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday (May 9) in its 186-page report, 'The Massalit Will Not Come Home: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El-Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan.’
Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF), along with the allied militias, have been accused of ethnic cleansing as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes in their war with the country's regular army, which began in April last year, CBC News reported.
Several thousands of people have already lost their lives in the war, which includes up to 15,000 killed in the West Darfur town of El-Geneina, as per United Nations experts.
The HRW report is based on interviews with 221 people, including 174 residents of El Geneina and surrounding villages. These people have witnessed abuses in the city and on the road to Chad between April and July last year.
In the interviews, these witnesses have described children, still alive, being “piled up and shot” by RSF, when they attempted to escape El Geneina in June last year during a bout of ethnic violence that killed thousands of civilians.
Through its report, the HRW stated that the United Nations and African Union should urgently impose an arms embargo on Sudan, besides deploying a mission with a robust police force to Darfur to protect the civilians there.
Further, it called for sanctioning the culprits responsible for widespread war crimes, including West Darfur RSF Commander Abdel Rahman Joma’a Barakallah, notorious RSF Commander Mohamed ‘Hemedti’ Hamdan Dagalo, as well as his brother Abdel Raheem.
Ever since clashes broke out between RSF and Sudan’s military back in April last year, over eight million people have already fled their homes amid a humanitarian crisis. The UN has warned that this could be one of the largest in decades.
El Fasher, which is currently the flashpoint, is held by Sudan’s military in Darfur. However, after being encircled by the RSF, diplomats fear it might be on the “precipice of a large-scale massacre.”
“As the UN Security Council and governments wake up to the looming disaster in El Fasher, 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," said Tirana Hassan, Executive Director at HRW.
One of the worst times of the civil war in Sudan was reported in June last year when the RSP and its allies attacked a kilometres-long convoy of civilians as they tried to leave El Geneina, escorted by Masalit fighters, The Guardian reported.
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Witnesses told the international organisation that the RSF chased, rounded up and shot all, including men, women and children, who ran through streets or attempted to swim the fast-flowing Kaja River. Many of them drowned as a result.
