Khartoum, 23June (Darfur24)Human rights Watch HRW has called on the United Nations Security Council and other international bodies to adopt urgent measures to better protect civilians and provide assistance to affected communities in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Since April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an independent military force, and allied Arab militias have been attacking non-Arab communities in West Darfur.
“Communities in Darfur faced ethnic cleansing and have continued to face other abuses for two decades while the international community largely stood by,” said Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “
The UN Security Council needs to urgently impose targeted sanctions and other measures against military commanders and militia leaders responsible for horrific abuses.”
Sudan’s doctor’s union has reported that 1,100 people have died in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina alone since mid-April, when the RSF and allied Arab militias attacked ethnic Massalit self-defense militias in the town. The fighting resulted in the mass displacement of non-Arab communities, and the RSF and militias committed widespread looting and arson and attacked critical civilian infrastructure, including internally displaced camps, hospitals, and markets. Assailants have also killed local leaders and human rights defenders, including at least two lawyers who represented victims of the groups’ previous attacks in El Geneina.
Sudan’s national army, the Sudanese Armed Forces, retreated to their barracks in El Geneina instead of protecting non-Arab communities, in apparent dereliction of their duties.
Of the nearly 2 million people displaced in Sudan since the conflict started on April 15, over 280,000 have been displaced within West Darfur alone according to the UN, and about 150,000 have fled into Chad. In 2022, West Darfur already had the highest rates of food insecurity in Sudan.
Civilians fleeing across the border to Chad have been attacked while many, notably Massalit young men and boys, have been trapped in El Geneina. Human Rights Watch has previously documented incidents of violence leading to serious abuses against civilians in the area over the past three years, including in January, April, and December 2021, and in April 2022 by heavily armed Arab militia alongside RSF members.
On June 14, the West Darfur governor, Khamis Abbakar, was brutally killed shortly after he told the media outlet Al Hadath of the horrors unfolding in El Geneina and blamed the RSF and its aligned forces. Videos on social media last showed Khamis alive under the groups’ custody. Human Rights Watch confirmed the location where these videos were taken as inside a compound in El Geneina. “Commander’s Office” is written above the door of the building where the governor was taken, reportedly referring to the office of the town’s Rapid Support Forces leader. The group has denied responsibility for Khamis’s death, issuing a statement attributing his “assassination” to “outlaws.”