The U.S. State Department has formally declared that genocide is occurring in Sudan, where it is being committed by the Rapid Support Forces. That confirms what we have been saying for more than a year.
X explains:
The ongoing conflict in Sudan has escalated with the U.S. declaring that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias have committed genocide in the region, particularly targeting the Masalit community in West Darfur. The RSF leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), faces sanctions from the U.S. Treasury. Amidst this, Sudan is grappling with a severe humanitarian crisis, with 11.5 million internally displaced and a looming famine threatening to spread by mid-2025.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken states, “I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan.” His “Genocide Determination in Sudan” states,
On April 15, 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched a conflict of unmitigated brutality that has resulted in the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe, leaving 638,000 Sudanese experiencing the worst famine in Sudan’s recent history, over 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and tens of thousands dead. In December 2023, I concluded that members of the SAF and the RSF had committed war crimes. I also determined that members of the RSF and allied Arab militias had committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
The RSF and RSF-aligned militias have continued to direct attacks against civilians. The RSF and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys—even infants—on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence. Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies. Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan.
The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible for these atrocities. We are today sanctioning RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa, known as Hemedti, for his role in systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people. We are also sanctioning seven RSF-owned companies located in the United Arab Emirates and one individual for their roles in procuring weapons for the RSF. In addition, we are today announcing Hemedti’s designation under Section 7031(c) for his involvement in gross violations of human rights in Darfur, namely the mass rape of civilians by RSF soldiers under his control. As a result of this designation, Hemedti and his immediate family members are ineligible for entry to the United States.
Hemedti has wantonly ignored commitments under international humanitarian law, the 2023 “Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan,” and the 2024 Code of Conduct produced by the Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan initiative. This code includes commitments to allow the unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief and prevent war crimes such as sexual violence, which the RSF and aligned militias under Hemedti’s leadership have committed.
As we reported in May 2023, “militias aligned with the RSF…referred to locally as the Janjaweed, or “devils on horseback” — were carrying out ethnic killings and have also looted and burned the palace of the sultan of the Masalit tribe. The Janjaweed are ethnically Arab militias; the Masalit are a local African tribe.”
As we noted in June 2023, “One of Sudan’s two warring factions, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), is engaged in ethnic cleansing in Sudan’s Darfur region, killing non-Arab peoples in Sudan’s Darfur region. It also abducted and killed a provincial governor. Khamis Abakar, the governor of West Darfur, was murdered hours after he accused the RSF of ‘genocide’, in a June 14 statement to a Saudi news channel. He was killed in the city of el-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. ‘Civilians are being killed randomly and in large numbers,’ he said.”
In July 2023, we noted that the “RSF has targeted Masalit refugee camps, killed people attempting to escape to neighboring Chad, kidnapped and raped women and systematically killed influential figures in the community, such as tribal leaders and human rights lawyers and monitors.”
In November 2023, we noted that the RSF had slaughtered 1600 Masalit people at a single camp for displaced people, that it had killed at least 1,000 Masalit in just a single district of El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, and that earlier in 2023, “the RSF, engaged in a series of mass killings and rapes near the provincial capital of El Geneina. The violence drove most of the African Masalit tribe into the neighboring country of Chad. This month, the RSF returned to finish the job.”
The RSF is shelling the biggest refugee camp, Zamzam, where famine was first declared in Sudan. Half of Sudan’s 50 million people are very hungry. In May the Clingendael Institute, a Dutch think-tank, estimated that hunger and related diseases would kill at least 6 million people in Sudan by 2027.
