“Since mid-April 2023, the conflict in Sudan has spread to 14 of the 18 states, affecting the entire country and the region. Eight million Sudanese have been displaced as a result of the conflict, while two million – more than two million – have been forced to flee to neighbouring countries,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, President of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan.
Disturbing initial findings
In his first report on the crisis since it was drawn up by the UN Human Rights Council In October 2023, the Geneva panel found that rival forces, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as well as their respective allies, were responsible for large-scale, indiscriminate and direct attacks involving airstrikes and shelling against civilians, schools, hospitals, communications networks, and vital water and electricity supplies – indicating a total disregard for the protection of non-combatants.
The three independent human rights experts leading the mission’s work – Mohamed Chande Othman, Chair, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo and Mona Rishmawi – stressed that responsibility for the serious violations lies with “both parties and their respective allies”, many of which amount to international crimes.
“In particular, we found that both the SAF and the RSF have been conducting hostilities in densely populated areas, notably through sustained attacks and artillery shelling in several cities, including Khartoum and several cities in Darfur, among others,” said Ms. Rishmawi.
The courage of the survivors
Although the government of Sudan has refused to cooperate with the Fact-Finding Mission after rejecting its mandate, investigators have collected first-hand accounts from 182 survivors, family members and eyewitnesses. Extensive consultations with experts and civil society activists have also been conducted to corroborate and verify additional leads.
“RSF members in particular have committed widespread sexual violence in the context of attacks on towns in the Darfur region and the Khartoum area,” Ms Ezeilo maintained. Victims reported being attacked, beaten, flogged and threatened with death or injury to their relatives or children at home before being raped by more than one perpetrator. They were also subjected to sexual violence while seeking shelter from attacks or fleeing. We also found evidence of women being subjected to sexual slavery after being abducted by RSF members.”
El Geneina Horrors
The panel’s report also found evidence of “large-scale, ethnically-based attacks against the non-Arab civilian population” – and in particular the Masalit population – in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, an ethnically diverse city of about 540,000 people. Shortly after the war broke out in April 2023, the RSF and allied militias attacked the city, killing thousands of people, the researchers said, with “horrific attacks… torture, rape” and the destruction of property and looting the norm.
“Masalit men were systematically singled out for killing,” the mission’s report continued. “RSF and its allied militias went door to door in Masalit neighborhoods, searching for men and brutally attacking and killing them, sometimes in front of their families. Lawyers, doctors, human rights defenders, academics, community and religious leaders were apparently specifically targeted. RSF commanders reportedly gave orders to ‘scour the city’ and set up checkpoints everywhere.”
The human rights experts highlighted the Sudanese army’s failure to protect civilians in cities and camps for people displaced by the war. They urged the international community to extend the current arms embargo on Darfur to the entire country. “Starving the parties of weapons and ammunition, including new supplies of ammunition and weapons, will help slow the hunger for hostilities,” said Mr. Othman.
Call for peacekeeping forces
The researchers also urged the international community to establish a peacekeeping force, either under UN authority or through a regional body:
“This can be done by the United Nations and there is, you know, in the neighboring country, in South Sudan, there is actually, you know, a mandate for the United Nations to protect civilians in certain countries,” Ms. Rishmawi said. “This can also be done, as we know, by the African Union, so regional organizations can actually do that as well.”
The breakdown of law and order in Sudan is so great that children are also being recruited on a large scale to participate in the conflict, the researchers said. “SAF mobilizes and sometimes mobilizes in schools, but the allied forces have recruited children and have used children in combat. And that is where the distinction is that you find in our report. It is much more systematic and widespread by RSF,” Ms. Rishmawi noted.
“There must be accountability” for these and other crimes, she continued, calling for the establishment of a special tribunal to hold perpetrators to account for the serious crimes being committed with complete impunity across Sudan.
“These people need to be held accountable. The fact that they were not held accountable in previous conflicts is what made women the female body, as a theater of operation for this war. This has to stop, and the only way to stop this is to have an international legal mechanism because there is no trust,” she said.
