The situation in Sudan bears all the marks of risk of genocide with strong allegations that this crime has already been committed.
So says the U.N.s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide to a Security Council briefing on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.
Alice Wairimu Nderitu pointed to civilians being attacks and killed because of their ethnicity or the colour of their skin in Darfur, a region that already experienced the first genocide of the 21st Century when an estimated 200-thousand people were killed between 2003 and 2005.
This year marks the 75th anniversary since the Council first established the protection of civilians as a matter of international peace and security.
After the April 2023 eruption of the brutal conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, tens of thousands of civilians have since been killed or injured, millions have been displaced while acute food insecurity has soared amid reports of horrific attacks and inhumane treatment of civilians.
With warnings echoed time and again in the halls of the U.N. that famine and disease was closing in with no end in sight to the fighting.
Add to that the risk of genocide in a region that had yet to fully recover and receive accountability for the last one, as Alice Wairimu Nderitu explains "I would like today to raise my alarm, in a clear and unequivocal way, about the ongoing situation in Sudan. This situation today bears all the marks of risk of genocide, with strong allegations that this crime has already been committed. Civilians are far from protected. Civilian populations are targeted on the basis of identity. In Darfur and El Fasher, civilians are being attacked and killed because of the colour of their skin, because of their ethnicity, because of who they are. They are also targeted with hate speech and with direct incitement to violence."
The Special Advisor visited Chad in October last year that included a visit to the eastern border with Sudan in an effort to collect first hand information from refugees who had fled the west Darfur region. "What I heard was horrifying. Refugees based in Farchana and Adre, many of them from the Masalit ethnic community, described the vicious violence they were subjected to and outspokenly alluded to elements which could indicate explicit intent to destroy their particular ethnic group. Intent to destroy is one of the key elements of the crime of genocide. Article II of the Genocide Convention defines the crime as any of a series of acts - I quote- committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, end of quote."
Nderitu pointed to instances of violence inflicted on these refugees - including the persistent use of rape as a weapon of war, the burning of entire villages, derogatory and racist language often aimed as African ethnic groups and incitement; the paramilitary force and its aligned militias bearing most responsibility. "Ethnically motivated attacks targeting these specific groups - the Masalit, and also the Fur and the Zaghawa - have been, and reportedly continue being, conducted primarily by RSF and allied armed Arab militias. They are reported to act in patterns whereby attacks against specific locations and individuals tend to be announced in advance, which could constitute indication of clear intent to destroy. Explicit calls to wage religious war by the leader of the RSF can go in the same direction. The situation in West Darfur clearly targets one part of the population (Masalit) - many fled to Chad, but many were killed on the way or in the conflict. Refugees arriving from Sudan, particularly in Chad, indicate that violence is based on ethnicity, including against Masalit."
She reiterated earlier briefings to the Council that all the parties to the conflict had committed violations of international humanitarian and human rights law; adding that insufficient global reaction belittled any progress made to prevent the gravest crimes. As never again sadly for so many becomes time and again.
