The United States determined on Tuesday that members of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had “committed genocide” and imposed sanctions on the paramilitary group’s leader.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the determination was based on information about the RSF’s “systematic” murder of men and boys and the targeted rape of women and girls from certain ethnic groups.
“The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible,” Blinken said, announcing sanctions against RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemedti, for his “role in systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people.”
Daglo had been designated “for his involvement in gross violations of human rights in Darfur, namely the mass rape of civilians by RSF soldiers under his control,” and he and his family members are now ineligible for entry to the United States, he said.
The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted after World War II, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
– ‘Brutal armed conflict’ –
Sudan has been torn apart and pushed towards famine by the war that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the RSF.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced, making Sudan the scene of the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
The United Nations says that more than 30 million people — over half of them children — are in need of aid in Sudan after 20 months of war.
“Sudan remains in the grip of a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions,” Edem Wosornu, from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, told the Security Council at the UN headquarters in New York earlier this week.
The US Treasury Department unveiled its own sanctions against Daglo on Tuesday, accusing the RSF of engaging in “a brutal armed conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces for control of Sudan.”
“Through its campaign in Darfur, Gezira, and other combat areas, the RSF has committed a litany of documented war crimes and atrocities,” it said.
As the overall commander of the RSF, Daglo “bears command responsibility for the abhorrent and illegal actions of his forces,” it added.
The Treasury designated seven companies and one individual linked to the RSF for their roles in procuring weapons for the group.
“The United States continues to call for an end to this conflict that is putting innocent civilian lives in jeopardy,” said deputy Treasury secretary Wally Adeyemo.
“The Treasury Department remains committed to using every tool available to hold accountable those responsible for violating the human rights of the Sudanese people,” he added.
