Image source: hrw
Human Rights Watch has deemed that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Darfur, Sudan, are conducting “ethnic cleansing” operations against “non-Arab” ethnicities.
On May 9, 2024, Human Rights Watch published a report stating that the RSF and allied militias in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State in Sudan, killed thousands of people and caused hundreds of thousands to become refugees between April and November 2023.
The organization described the actions of the RSF and allied militias as “crimes against humanity and widespread war crimes,” involving killings, torture, persecution, and forced displacement of civilians, within the context of ethnic cleansing against the Masalit and other non-Arab populations in and around Geneina.
Human Rights Watch titled their report “The Massalit Will Not Come Home’: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan” documenting the targeting of Masalit-majority neighborhoods in Geneina by the RSF for three months (from April to June).
The report noted an escalation in RSF violations in November, with severe abuses such as torture, rape, and looting. More than half a million refugees fled from West Darfur to Chad from April to October 2023, 75% of them from Geneina.
Tirana Hassan, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, emphasized that the extensive atrocities committed in Geneina should serve as a reminder of the horrors that can occur in the absence of coordinated action. She called on governments, the African Union, and the United Nations to take measures to protect civilians.
Violence in Geneina began nine days after fighting broke out in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, between the “Sudanese Armed Forces” and the RSF. On April 24, 2023, the violence peaked in a massacre on June 15, when the RSF and their allies fired on a kilometers-long convoy of civilians desperately trying to flee, accompanied by Masalit fighters.
The RSF and allied militias escalated their violations again in November, targeting Masalit residents who had taken refuge in the Ardamata area of Geneina, arresting Masalit men and boys. According to the United Nations, at least a thousand people were killed.
The RSF is an independent military force fighting the Sudanese army, allied with armed Arab militias such as the “Third Front – Tamazuj”
The United Nations General Assembly considers genocide a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and purposes of the United Nations, and condemned by the civilized world.
Same Justice organization emphasizes the necessity of protecting people belonging to national and religious minorities, safeguarding them from abuses, and stressing the punishment of genocide perpetrators, as well as protecting individuals at risk of enforced disappearance, which violates international humanitarian law.
