“Rampage of Killings, Looting, Torture, Rape”: Ethnic Cleansing in Sudan’s Darfur Region

this news is funded by viewers like you, please support our work at democracynow.org Kei, we want to move now to a conflict that is very rarely covered and certainly not covered to the extent that it should be, which is in Sudan, where A humanitarian catastrophe in northern Darur is escalating, as Human Rights Watch documented on Wednesday. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Sudan said people are trapped in an inferno of brutal violence between the army and paramilitary forces, which has made it difficult to deliver aid and now. cites famine is approaching more than 4 million people and on Wednesday the United States imposed sanctions against two commanders of Sudan's rapid support paramilitary forces.

This is human rights lawyer Jamal Abdul Kamam describing how he almost escaped a massacre orchestrated by fast security forces o r SF spoke in a video for a new Human Rights Watch report titled Sudan's Ethnic Cleansing in West daro I was accompanying to my wounded friend YF Arun cabalo minutes later around eight militiamen dressed in rapid support forces uniforms appeared, there were others with them from these wells. -known Arab militias were arguing with people they stopped the cars they opened fire on us they shot at the chests of children women old and young it was a heartbreaking scene we thought about how to escape but we needed a way to escape how are we?

We were going to escape, they started chasing people through the valley and shooting at people who were in the water, it was terrifying, so belis Villa, that was an excerpt from the video that accompanied your report, the Human Rights Watch report on Sudan, if you could talk about, uh, key findings of the report and why Human Rights Watch has concluded that the RF may have committed genocide, so this report is about a period last year between April and June and then in November and We have focused the report around the events that occurred in the capital of West St, in the city of Eljan, the reason we focus there is because although there has been fighting throughout Sudan since last April, when there was a division between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Force versus the RSF, the violence has perhaps been most acute there and this is an area that since 2003 has faced waves of violence and horrific

killings

last April, with this division and fighting taking place.

They developed in Kartoum, the capital we saw. The FRS proceeded to surround the town of Eljan um, where there was a limited Sudanese Armed Forces presence, withdrew from the town and at that point left the civilians of the town in the hands of the FRS. The FRS brought in allied militias and these allied militias and the RSF then from April to June carried out a series of

killings

,

looting

,

torture

and

rape

against a specific

ethnic

group, the Masalit population and some other specific

ethnic

groups, and this It was a campaign of ethnic

cleansing

, as you say. that we saw conduct was done for approximately 6 weeks and during that time these Armed Forces surrounded this population pushing them into a smaller and smaller sector of the city and then finally expelled them from the city in a massive wave of murders where there were tens of thousands of people on the street, mostly masalit walking trying to get to a safe place and fast supporting forces along the sides of the road just opening fire and shooting at them, people started running, they jumped into the river which was deep and they were drowning while they were drowning, they were being shot dead, some then turned around and ran in the direction of the border with Chad and along that road they were also surrounded by forces and many were killed at the end of the summer In the past, my colleague and I interviewed dozens of survivors of this violence, we ended up interviewing 200 or so and they shared with us horrific details about these murders and it's really important that states focus on the seriousness of this violence and focus. about examining whether there was really intent to commit genocide on the part of RSF and whether there should be prosecutions for genocide and belus V if you can explain who is arming both sides I mean we just passed the first anniversary of this conflict between the Sudanese army and the rsf who are together before this and explain who the leaders are and the countries on both sides unfortunately this is an incredibly murky picture we have different governments providing weapons to each side of these groups we ourselves have been trying to track some of these transfers of AR weapons because, of course, the more weapons continue to be introduced into this conflict, the more the fighting will continue and the more civilians will pay the price.

I think what is perhaps most notable is actually the lack of action to protect civilians, whether by the UN Security Council or the African Union, you know there was a peacekeeping mission from the UN based in Sudan and its mission ended in 2020, the UN created a new mission that had no uh peacekeeping or protection of the civilian mandate was just a political negotiations mission, but even that was closed at the end of the year last November, so in Sudan there is absolutely no entity that focuses on the protection of civilians and so on. What we are asking for in this report is a new mission that must be created by both the UN and the African Union sent to Sudan with the mission of protecting civilians and at the same time we need to see an effective response. arms embargo currently there is an AR arms embargo in force in the context of darur, it is not being enforced as you said there are different states bringing weapons into the country and that needs to be enforced to better protect civilians yes I can only add one thing : There is another city, a city in the north of Darur that you mentioned.

As of now, that city, uh, as of this morning is on fire in the eastern part of the city. We saw satellite images from two days ago. showing that the rsf have surrounded the city and that fires are developing in civilian neighborhoods and that this is a city that has been hosting tens of thousands of people who have been displaced by fighting in other parts of darur belis, as you mentioned, There is an existing arms embargo, so if I could say, I mean how an arms embargo is normally applied and why it has not been applied in this case and what are the countries that are violating the arms embargo consistently outside the Powers involved in this conflict, including the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt and no doubt others, just so you know.

I mean, the effectiveness of arms embargoes really also comes from the political will to impose those arms embargoes and the political will of the parties in the States to not send weapons to specific conflicts. areas uh, but also on the side of the international community, the surveillance community, the UN Security Council to hold States accountable when they are breaking Bargo's arms and that is something that we are not seeing happen in the context. of dar give because you specifically mention the name of some States like the United Arab Emirates and others that are sending weapons to this conflict and context, but as I said it is extremely murky, there is limited monitoring of what kind of weapons are being introduced into the country and how they are being used by these warring parties, exactly the reason why, in fact, there should be an arms embargo, a complete arms embargo that is being effectively enforced by the UN and the global community. belis, if you could say you know, just describe what the magnitude of the crisis is for refugees and internally displaced people in Sudan.

A new report from the International Organization for Migration has found that 20,000 people are forced to flee their homes in Sudan every day. 20,000 people every day half of them are children, what do you think should be done to help these people get to a place that is safe? As you say, I mean, the scale of the conflict really cannot be underestimated. We have areas of the country that are approaching famine, we have areas of the country like Dar, where the violence and conditions have been so bad and the violence so acute that more than half a million people have had to flee across the border. towards Chad, we have seen a lot of people have to flee to other neighboring countries, including South Sudan and other places, so it really speaks to the horrible situation that civilians are facing, unfortunately, as long as the fighting continues and as long as there is no entity that can put an end to the situation. instead, you know, a civil protection strategy, we're going to continue to look at the conditions that you're describing, there are so many areas that are completely out of reach for aid groups, aid bodies and aid workers, so that those There are areas where there is no way to get food, medicine or water and that is because the warring sides, the RSF and the Sudanese armed forces are blocking the access of humanitarian workers to these areas, they are preventing civilians from flee from certain areas and that is really the context of the conditions that you described milis Villa we want to thank you very much for being with us associate director of the arms, conflicts and crises division of Human Rights Watch speaking to us from the capital of Ukraine from keev and speaking from international affairs human rights today the international court of justice is hearing from South Africa your request regarding the Israeli attack on the town of Rafa in southern Gaza, we will have more information on that tomorrow I'm Amy Goodman with nine her for another edition of democracy Democracy Now is funded by viewers like you, please donate today at democracynow.org or SLG.