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ICC to issue warrants over Sudan 'genocide'

Publish date: 03 February 2025
Issue Number: 1111
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: General

The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for people accused of atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the US and others have determined that a paramilitary group and its allies have perpetrated genocide. The Guardian reports that Karim Khan told the UN Security Council in New York: ‘Criminality is accelerating in Darfur. Civilians are being targeted, women and girls are subjected to sexual violence, and entire communities are left in destruction. This is not just an assessment; it is a hard-edged analysis based on verified evidence.’ Khan said ICC lawyers had made material progress by interviewing witnesses who had fled Sudan. Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions, including the vast western Darfur region. Two decades ago, Darfur became synonymous with genocide and war crimes, particularly by the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias, against populations that identify as central or east African. Up to 300 000 people were killed and 2.7m were driven from their homes. Khan said there were very clear echoes now of what happened 20 years ago. ‘The pattern of crimes, the perpetrators, the parties, tracked very closely with the same protagonists, the same targeted groups as existed in 2003,’ he said. ‘It’s the same communities, the same groups suffering, a new generation suffering the same hell that has been endured by other generations of Darfuris, and this is tragic.’ In January Khan told the council there were grounds to believe both government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which was born out of the Janjaweed, may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in Darfur.

The new US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has confirmed he regards recent events in Darfur as a genocide, a term deployed by the Biden administration in its final days, notes The Guardian report. Rubio also openly accused the United Arab Emirates of funding the RSF, which the UAE denies. The UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, last week went to the Sudan-Chad border to be briefed on the humanitarian crisis, and plans to hold a Foreign Ministers’ meeting on Sudan in the next few months. The Trump team is being urged to appoint a special envoy for the Horn of Africa, and to review its decision to freeze all US aid for six months pending a review. The US was the largest donor of humanitarian aid to the Sudan response, providing more than $1.4bn (£1.1bn) in humanitarian assistance since October 2022, including more than $980m in USAid funding.

Full report in The Guardian

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