Gruesome new testimony details one of the worst atrocities of the year-long Sudanese civil war – the large-scale massacre of civilians as they desperately tried to flee an ethnic rampage in Darfur last summer.
Witnesses describe children, still alive, being “piled up and shot” by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as they attempted to escape the regional capital of El Geneina in June last year during a bout of ethnic violence in which thousands of civilians were killed.
Together, the 221 witness statements collated by Human Rights Watch offer the latest evidence that the Arab-led RSF has orchestrated a concerted 12-month campaign of ethnic cleansing against Sudan’s non-Arab Masalit tribe in West Darfur.
The United Nations and African Union should, says HRW, urgently impose an arms embargo on Sudan and deploy a mission with a robust police force to Darfur, the sprawling region in the west of the country, to protect civilians.
A HRW report published Wednesday calls for sanctions for those ultimately responsible for widespread war crimes, including the West Darfur RSF commander Abdel Rahman Joma’a Barakallah, along with the notorious commander of the RSF, Mohamed “Hemedti” Hamdan Dagalo, and his brother Abdel Raheem.
Since fighting erupted between the RSF and Sudan’s military in April 2023, more than 8 million people have fled their homes amid a humanitarian crisis that the UN warns is one of the largest in decades.
The current flashpoint, El Fasher, is the last city held by Sudan’s military in Darfur. The city is encircled by the RSF, and diplomats fear it is on the “precipice of a large-scale massacre”.
Tirana Hassan, the executive director at Human Rights Watch, said: “As the UN security council and governments wake up to looming disaster in El Fasher, the large-scale atrocities committed in El Geneina should be seen as a reminder of the atrocities that could come in the absence