UN: Sudan Rebel Destruction 'Genocide' 02/19 06:06

   

   GENEVA (AP) -- A "campaign of destruction" in October by Sudanese 
paramilitary forces against non-Arab communities in and near a city in the 
country's western region of Darfur shows "hallmarks of genocide," U.N.-backed 
human rights experts reported Thursday, a dramatic finding in the country's 
devastating war.

   The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces -- which are at war with the Sudanese 
military -- carried out mass killings and other atrocities in the city of 
el-Fasher after an 18-month siege during which they imposed conditions 
"calculated to bring about the physical destruction" of non-Arab communities, 
in particular the Zaghawa and the Fur communities, the independent fact-finding 
mission on Sudan reported.

   U.N. officials say several thousand civilians were killed in the RSF 
takeover of el-Fasher, the Sudanese army's only remaining stronghold in the 
Darfur. Only 40% of the city's 260,000 residents managed to flee the onslaught 
alive, thousands of whom were wounded, the officials said. The fate of the rest 
remains unknown.

   A brutal war

   Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions 
between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital of 
Khartoum and spread to other regions, including Darfur. So far, the war has 
killed more than 40,000 people, according to U.N. figures, but aid groups say 
that's an undercount and the true number could be many times higher.

   The RSF overran el-Fasher on Oct. 26 and rampaged through the city in an 
offensive marked by widespread atrocities that included mass killings and 
summary executions, sexual violence, torture, and abductions for ransom, 
according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.

   They killed more than 6,000 people between Oct. 25 and Oct. 27 in the city, 
the office said. Ahead of the attack, the paramilitary forces ran riot in the 
Abu Shouk displacement camp, just outside of the city, and killed at least 300 
people in two days, it said.

   The RSF did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment. The group's 
commander, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has previously acknowledged abuses by 
his fighters, but disputed the scale of atrocities.

   At least 3 criteria for genocide were met, team says

   An international convention known colloquially as the "Genocide Convention" 
-- adopted in 1948, three years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust 
-- sets out five criteria to assess whether genocide has taken place.

   They are: killing members of a group; causing its members serious bodily or 
mental harm; imposing measures aimed to prevent births in the group; 
deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the "physical 
destruction" of the group; and forcibly transferring its children to another 
group.

   The fact-finding team, which doesn't have final say on the matter, said it 
found at least three of those five were met in the actions of the RSF. Under 
the convention, a genocide determination could be made even if only one of the 
five were met.

   The RSF acts in el-Fasher included killing members of a protected ethnic 
group; causing serious bodily and mental harm; and deliberately inflicting 
conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction 
in whole or in part -- all core elements of the crime of genocide under 
international law, according to the fact-finding team.

   The report cited a systematic pattern of ethnically targeted killings, 
sexual violence and destruction and public statements explicitly calling for 
the elimination of non-Arab communities.

   'Not random' excesses of war, chair says

   Team chair Mohamed Chande Othman, a former chief justice of Tanzania, said 
the RSF operation were not "random excesses of war" but pointed to a planned 
and organized operation that bore the characteristics of genocide.

   El-Fasher's residents were "physically exhausted, malnourished, and in part 
unable to flee, leaving them defenseless against the extreme violence that 
followed," the team's report said. "Thousands of persons, particularly the 
Zaghawa, were killed, raped or disappeared during three days of absolute 
horror."

   The fact-finding mission pointed to mass killings, widespread rape, sexual 
violence, torture and cruel treatment, arbitrary detention, extortion, and 
enforced disappearances during RSF's takeover of el-Fasher in October.

   The report documented cases of survivors quoting its fighters as saying 
things like: "Is there anyone Zaghawa among you? If we find Zaghawa, we will 
kill them all" and "We want to eliminate anything black from Darfur."

   The report pointed to "selective targeting" of Zaghawa and Fur women and 
girls, "while women perceived as Arab were often spared."

   British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called the report's findings "truly 
horrific" and said she would take it to the U.N. Security Council to "ensure 
that the voices of women of Sudan who have endured so much are heard by the 
world."

   "Today's report describes the most unimaginable and chilling horrors," she 
said. "The world is still failing the people of Sudan. When the stories started 
to emerge about the horrors of el-Fasher it should have been a turning point, 
but the violence is continuing."

   A call for accountability

   The fact-finding team was created in 2023 by the Geneva-based Human Rights 
Council, the U.N.'s leading human rights body, which has 47 member countries 
drawn from membership in the world body.

   The team called for accountability for perpetrators and warned that 
protection of civilians is needed "more than ever" because the conflict is 
expanding to other regions in Sudan.

   Over the course of the conflict, the warring parties were accused of 
violating international law. But most of the atrocities were blamed on the RSF: 
The Biden administration, in one of its last decisions, said the paramilitary 
force committed genocide in Darfur.

   U.N. experts and rights groups says the RSF has had the backing of the 
United Arab Emirates over the course of the war, allegations that the UAE 
denies.

   The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed militias, notorious for atrocities they 
committed in the early 2000s in a ruthless campaign in Darfur that killed some 
300,000 people and drove 2.7 million from their homes.