UN Investigation: RSF Actions in Sudan's El-Fasher Indicate Genocide

(Patria) - Mass killings of non-Arab communities when the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took over the Sudanese city of El-Fasher bear hallmarks indicating genocide, according to a new report by an independent United Nations investigation on Thursday, Reuters reported last night.

In late October last year, the RSF seized the city, which was the last remaining stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the Darfur region in the west of the country, with thousands of people killed and raped during three days of horror, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan announced.

This followed an eighteen-month siege in which the RSF imposed living conditions calculated to physically destroy non-Arab communities, particularly the Zaghawa and Fur, the report states.

The UN mission stated that it found evidence that the RSF carried out a pattern of coordinated and repeated targeting of individuals based on ethnicity, gender, and perceived political affiliation, including mass killings, rape, and torture, as well as imposing living conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the group – key elements of the crime of genocide under international law.

The final draft of the report was shared with the Government of Sudan, but no response was received, while the RSF did not respond to the UN mission's request to meet with its leadership, the report states.

In the past, the RSF has denied such abuses, saying that reports were fabricated by their enemies and making counter-accusations against them.

"The scale, coordination, and public endorsement of the operation by the RSF's senior leadership show that the crimes committed in and around El-Fasher were not random excesses of war," said Mohamad Chande Othman, Chairperson of the Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan. "They were part of a planned and organized operation that bears the defining characteristics of genocide," he added.

Before its capture, the population of El-Fasher mainly consisted of Zaghawa, a non-Arab community, while the displaced persons camps in the area were composed of the Fur, Berti, Masalit, and Tama communities, the report states.
Rhetoric of extermination

"Survivors describe explicit threats of 'cleansing' the city," the report states. In addition to attacks on displaced persons camps, communal kitchens, and medical centers with drones and heavy weaponry, the RSF also carried out killings, looting, beatings, and sexual violence in El-Fasher, the report states.

The RSF and other violations of the law indicate their intent to destroy the Zaghawa and Fur communities in whole or in part, the report states.

"Witnesses heard the Rapid Support Forces saying: 'Are there any Zaghawa among you? If we find Zaghawa, we will kill them all,'" the report states.

Survivors recounted direct executions of civilians, as well as bodies of men, women, and children filling the roads, the report states.
Women and girls aged seven to seventy from non-Arab communities, particularly from the Zaghawa tribe, were raped and subjected to other acts of sexual violence, including whipping and forced nudity, the report states.

The UN mission was mandated by members of the Human Rights Council to urgently investigate violations and abuses of international law in and around El-Fasher.