Genocide Committed in Western Sudan, UN Confirms

“Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed genocide in the western city of el-Fasher, carrying out mass killings, gang rapes and deliberate starvation as part of an intentional policy, a United Nations investigation has found. The UN Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan released its findings on Wednesday, concluding that the RSF’s systematic campaign of violence against civilians during and after its siege of the capital of North Darfur state amounted to genocide, building on a February report that had already identified hallmarks of the crime.”

The genocide was mainly aimed at the Zaghawa people, who live in the western part of North Darfur state.

The Fact-Finding Mission’s chairman warned that genocide may also occur in other parts of Sudan that the RSF is attempting to take over, such as El-Obeid, the capital of a state in central Sudan, where a “catastrophe” is unfolding due to the RSF encircling the city.

In yesterday’s report, “survivors in el-Fasher described being raped in rooms where bodies of recently killed ‌civilians, including their own family members, were still lying on the ground.” The UN documented that the RSF “committed the war crime of starvation by imposing a prolonged siege on the city, impeding relief supplies and shelling food production systems.”

The UN’s Volker Turk warned last week that ⁠a “catastrophe” is beginning around the city of El-Obeid, where frequent summary executions, abductions, torture and sexual violence are occurring near the city in areas occupied by the RSF.

Sudan is in the midst of a civil war between Sudan’s armed forces, and a militia called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Both sides have killed thousands of civilians using drones. In a village near El-Obeid, an RSF drone killed 65 people at a funeral gathering. Earlier, “a drone attack” by the RSF “hit a kindergarten in” the town of Kalogli in “south-central Sudan, killing 50 people, including 33 children,” reported the Associated Press. Then it returned to kill paramedics at the scene.

Millions of people in Sudan lost power last year due to drone strikes on a key power plant.

The Rapid Support Forces also have committed genocide against the Masalit people of Darfur in western Sudan. They slaughtered tens of thousands of the Zaghawa people, including thousands of children, after seizing the major city of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. The RSF also has kidnapped thousands of people and held them for ransom, torturing many of them. The RSF has killed at least 250,000 people from non-Arab ethnic groups in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

Recently, monkeypox spread in the mountains of western Sudan.

Sudan’s civil war has already killed at least 400,000 people.