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The United Nations Security Council has sanctioned two commanders of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of the two key warring parties in Sudan’s ongoing conflict.
It is much-needed and long-awaited positive news.
The war between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has been devastating Sudan since April last year. Although it’s not been getting the international media attention it deserves, we’ve covered it often here in the Daily Brief, particularly what’s been happening in the Darfur region.
We’ve highlighted the atrocities being committed by both sides and affiliated fighters, such as torturing and summarily executing people in their custody.
The RSF and its allied militias have slaughtered and terrorized entire communities in West Darfur. Looting and arson go hand-in-hand with killing and rape. They’ve attacked critical civilian infrastructure, like hospitals and markets. They’ve razed entire neighborhoods to the ground.
These RSF attacks are not random. They are targeted on ethnic grounds, focused predominantly on non-Arab communities, in particular ethnic Massalit people.
The RSF is largely recruited from the old Janjaweed, the militia known for their appalling crimes against non-Arab groups, including the Massalit, in 2003-2004. The RSF’s allied militias are mainly Arab.
In short, the RSF has been responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.
For more than a year and a half, the international community has little to address the situation in Sudan. The new UN Security Council sanctions are a welcome first step.
The Security Council imposed an international travel ban and asset freeze on two people: RSF head of operations, Major General Osman Mohamed Hamid Mohamed; and West Darfur RSF commander, General Abdel Rahman Joma’a Barakallah.
This is good news, but clearly given the scale of the slaughter in Sudan, it’s not enough. This conflict has forced more than half a million people to flee over the border to Chad. It has displaced 11 million people inside Sudan, the largest internal displacement crisis in the world. Parts of Darfur are facing famine.
Hopefully, these new UN sanctions are just the start, and more abusers will be added to the list.
The UN Security Council also needs to expand the arms embargo on Darfur to cover the whole of Sudan. New weapons from companies registered in China, Iran, Russia, Serbia, and the United Arab Emirates, have continued to land in the hands of the RSF and the SAF since the conflict started – and are likely to be used in more abuses.
The international community still has much to do to help stop the slaughter in Sudan.
