The United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide warned on Tuesday that Sudan is showing all the signs of risk of genocide, and that it may have already occurred. Alice Wairimu Nderitu spoke at a UN Security Council meeting to mark the 25th anniversary of a resolution on the protection of civilians in armed conflict and the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, the cornerstone of international humanitarian law.
“The situation today bears all the marks of risk of genocide, with strong allegations that this crime has already been committed,” Nderitu said.
“The protection of civilians in Sudan cannot wait. The risk of genocide exists in Sudan. It is real and it is growing, every single day.”
She said many Sudanese civilians are being targeted because of their identity.
“In Darfur and El Fasher, civilians are being attacked and killed because of the color of their skin, because of their ethnicity, because of who they are,” Nderitu said in a video briefing.
“They are also targeted with hate speech and with direct incitement to violence.”
El Fasher is the capital of North Darfur, where fighting has recently escalated between the rival Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), based inside the city, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have now reportedly advanced into it.
Heavy fighting broke out in El Fasher on May 10, and the past week has seen fierce clashes in and around the city, including deliberate attacks on civilians, the burning of residential neighborhoods, and indiscriminate bombing and shelling.
Tens of thousands of people in El Fasher have already been displaced, with many civilians trapped in the city with no access to aid. Escalating fighting in recent days has resulted in many civilian deaths and injuries, damaged the only functioning hospital in the state, and hampered humanitarian access to the town and beyond.
The international humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) is supporting a hospital in El Fasher that is overwhelmed and running low on supplies. MSF reported Tuesday that 707 casualties have arrived at South Hospital since the fighting began, and 85 people have died. South Hospital is one of the few functioning health facilities left in the city.
“There is only one surgeon at South Hospital and new patients arrive every day, so he is under intense pressure,” Claire Nicolet, MSF's head of emergency programs, said in a statement.
"People are arriving with abdominal injuries, chest wounds, brain trauma, and open fractures. Some have gunshot wounds, some have been wounded by bomb fragments, and others have been wounded by shelling.”
She said MSF hopes to increase the number of surgeons in the coming days to help treat the large number of wounded more quickly.
“Currently, due to the intensity of the fighting, people are trapped in the city and cannot leave, so we anticipate that there will be more wounded arriving at the hospital over the coming days,” Nicolet said.
Medical supplies are running low as the delivery of humanitarian aid has been obstructed by the warring parties.
“As well as limited numbers of staff, another challenge is supply. Medical supplies are running out—we have only around 10 days of supplies left, so we urgently need to be able to restock the hospital,” she said
"We need safe access and authorizations from the warring parties to be able to do this. If we don't get these supplies, it will be extremely difficult to continue to treat the wounded."
El Fasher is the only town in the Darfur region that the Rapid Support Forces have not captured. More than 800,000 civilians are sheltering there, and a full-scale battle could unleash atrocities similar to the genocide perpetrated by Arab Janjaweed fighters against African Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur, and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s.
Janjaweed fighters make up today's RSF.
“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,” Nderitu said.
“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.”
Intent to destroy is a key element of the crime of genocide.
Since early April this year, the RSF have launched several large-scale attacks on villages west of El Fasher. For weeks, the UN has been among the voices warning that the RSF have encircled the North Darfur capital and are ready to attack.
Nderitu said the reported attacks on villages around El Fasher appear to be designed to cause displacement and fear, rather than to achieve specific military objectives.
“It is imperative that all possible actions aimed at the protection of innocent civilian populations, in El Fasher as in the entire territory of Sudan, are expedited,” she said. “It is urgent to stop ethnically motivated violence.”
Nderitu visited refugees in neighboring Chad in October and said she saw camps set up there in the early 2000s to house civilians fleeing that genocide side by side with camps for the new refugees. In West Darfur, she said, Masalit communities have been targeted, with many killed as they fled to Chad or during the conflict.
According to human rights groups, the ongoing offensive in El Fasher could unleash more war crimes and crimes against humanity, such as those committed by RSF and allied militias in El Geneina in West Darfur State from April to November 2023.
In a recent report, the international rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the attacks by the RSF and allied militias constituted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the ethnic Masalit and other non-Arab populations in and around the town of El Geneina.
According to the HRW report, at least thousands of people have been killed in mass atrocities in the capital of Sudan's West Darfur State, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. According to a UN report, as many as 15,000 people were killed in ethnically motivated violence in El Geneina alone from April to June.
On Tuesday, Nderitu criticized both RSF and SAF for ignoring international human rights and humanitarian law, using heavy weapons in densely populated areas, detaining youth and men at checkpoints, and using hate speech and incitement to violence.
The Special Adviser expressed particular concern about the use of rape and gender-based violence, the burning and looting of villages, the bombing of medical facilities, and the lack of access to water and electricity.
Parts of Sudan are also facing famine as a result of the 13-month war, and Nderitu said humanitarian access is urgent. She told Security Council members they have a "special responsibility" to consider measures to prevent another genocide in Sudan.
“Only warring parties can stop the fighting, but the international community remains responsible to take action to protect the Sudanese people from genocide,” Nderitu stressed.
Sudan has witnessed shocking levels of violence since fighting broke out on April 15, 2023, sparked by a power struggle between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, commander of the SAF, and General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the RSF, also known as "Hemedti," plunging the country into a devastating humanitarian crisis.
On Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker TĂĽrk held separate phone calls with Sudan's rival generals in an attempt to de-escalate the conflict.
According to his spokesperson, the UN human rights chief warned both commanders that fighting in El Fasher would have a catastrophic impact on civilians and deepen the intercommunal conflict with catastrophic humanitarian consequences.
He also urged them to abandon entrenched positions and take specific, concrete steps to cease hostilities and ensure the effective protection of civilians.
The High Commissioner reminded the commanders of their obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure strict compliance with the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution, and to put an end to all ongoing violations.
TĂĽrk appealed to the two generals to put the interests of the people first. He expressed his deep distress over the situation in Sudan and urged them to take concrete steps to cease hostilities.
The civil war between the SAF and the RSF is being conducted with new levels of violence and brutality against civilians, particularly in the states of Darfur. The RSF in particular has been accused of mass killings and rape as a means of warfare. However, both parties to the conflict have been accused of serious war crimes.
Thousands are being ethnically targeted, killed, injured, abused and exploited, forcing more and more people to flee the violence. Gender-based violence (GBV), including sexual violence, is being used as a tool of war and is no longer concentrated in Khartoum or Darfur, but has spread to other parts of the country.
Sudan is experiencing a humanitarian emergency of epic proportions that many have called the world's largest man-made crisis, with half the population in need of life-saving assistance, tens of thousands killed and injured, and millions uprooted from their homes. Most of the population has no access to health care.
Aid agencies say the war is having catastrophic consequences for a population of nearly 49 million people - with more than 24.8 million in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance. Among those in need are more than 14 million children. In the Darfur region, at least 9 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Overall, more than 9 million people have been forced to flee their homes since April last year. More than 7 million people have been internally displaced within Sudan. Over 2 million people have fled the country. Of these, 1.8 million have crossed into Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.