The current War in Sudan (Wikipedia) has it’s roots in the conflict between the Janjaweed militias and the Sudanese government dating back to the 1980s. Janjaweed militias comprise largely of Abbala Arabs who are semi nomadic. They hired themselves out to Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi as mercenaries and are known for raiding small towns in Chad and Western Sudan. After Chad’s army defeated Libya in the latter’s expansionist expedition into Chadian territory. The Janjaweed, backed by Gaddafi began raiding the region, causing over 9,000 civilian deaths against other ethnic groups in an effort to purge them from the area.

As part of the UN peace process, by 2006 the Janjaweed militias had been absorbed into the Sudanese military, becoming a new army called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It is believed in the 3 years prior they had murdered between 200,000 and 400,000 civilians.

In early 2019 a military coup ousted Omar al-Bashir who had ruled the country for 30 years. A transitional government led by general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan took charge of the country. Russia approached al-Burhan for a deal to use it’s Red Sea port for a Russian naval base. The defacto ruler agreed (February of 2023) in principle but later balked. He stated Sudan would be transitioning back to civilian rule in 2023 and Russia would have to deal with the new government.

On February 23 (one day before the Russian assault on Ukraine) former Janjaweed militia leader and current Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the RSF, visited the Kremlin for a meeting with Vladimir Putin. During the meeting he stated he had no problem hosting a Russian naval base on the Red Sea. The RSF’s relationship with Wagner Group is worth mentioning. The RSF seized gold mines in Western Sudan and Eastern Chad where a Wagner Group presence has been reported (Radio Free Europe).

On April 15 2023 the RSF launched a coup attempt to overthrow al-Burhan and the rest of the Sudanese Army. Since that time the Janjaweed RSF has reverted to it’s old habits. They looted $13M worth of food intended for refugees from the UN World Food Program. 6.7M people are internally displaced and another 2M have fled the country. As of April 15, 2024, 24.8M people are in immediate need of assistance.

In April 2024, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights released a report into breaches of the Genocide Convention in Darfur. The independent report found that there is “clear and convincing evidence” that the RSF and its allied militias “have committed and are committing genocide against the Masalit,” a non-Arab ethnic group, and that all 153 states that have signed the Genocide Convention are “obligated to end complicity in and employ all means reasonably available to prevent and halt the genocide.” It goes on to say that there is “clear and convincing evidence” that Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Russia via the actions of the Wagner Group are “complicit in the genocide.

After the June and November 2023 massacres, the RSF and its allied Arab militias undertook operations to conceal their atrocities, forcing members of non-Arab groups to discard thousands of bodies in mass graves and confiscating the cell phones of survivors to prevent evidence from being shared with the outside world.116 One Sudanese Red Crescent volunteer reported loading 400 bodies in one week, including women and children, many with bullet wounds to the head.117 From late April until mid-June, at least 1,000 bodies were buried in al-Ghabat cemetery.118 Dozens of eyewitness accounts confirm that the burial of Masalit bodies in El Geneina lasted for weeks due to the high number of bodies.119 As one eyewitness recalled: “there was nothing there except for corpses and horrific scenes. Raoul Wallenberg Centre.

Reports of murders and rapes of girls as young as 12 years old have been reported in regions taken over by the RSF.

Amnesty International has accused both the RSF and the SAF of crimes against humanity as the UN. ICC prosecutor: There are grounds to believe Sudan’s warring sides are committing crimes in Darfur (APNews).

The ICJ issued a warrant of arrest against the (former) President of Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes on March 4, 2009. No UN organization has issued a warrant or an order to desist action to the RSF or the SAF in the Sudan Conflict.

Related

• ICC: Jordan Was Required to Arrest Sudan’s Bashir Human Rights Watch
• South Africa defends decision to ignore ICC’s Bashir arrest warrant Reuters
• Case Study 27