US declares Sudan’s RSF have committed genocide during civil war
The United States on Tuesday formally declared that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces have committed genocide during the country’s ongoing civil war that began in 2023, leaving tens of thousands of people killed and millions displaced. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, also announced sanctions on the RSF commander Mohammad Hamdan Daglo – known as Hemedti.
In response to the determination, Human rights advocates said it underscored the Biden administration's refusal to acknowledge what experts said is also clearly taking place in Gaza at the hands of the US backed Israeli army.
The genocide determination comes two decades after the United States took a similar step in 2004, when then Secretary of State Colin Powell determined that the Janjaweed, ruthless ethnic militias allied with Sudan’s military, had committed genocide during a vicious counterinsurgency campaign in Darfur.
Antony Blinken signed off on the declaration on Monday, saying the RSF's acts of genocide include systemic violence against the Masalit, a non-Arab ethnic group, between April-November 2023 in the western region of Darfur.
Humanitarian workers reported that they counted 2,000 bodies in a single day during that attack, while the United Nations estimated as many as 15,000 people were killed in one city.
Hundreds of thousands of Masalit people have fled to overcrowded camps in neighbouring Chad.
UN experts have found widespread use of sexual violence during the civil war largely ignored by international communities. According to UN, the conflict, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and their former partners turned rivals for power, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has now displaced 11 million inside the country.
