Twice, Amna Al-Nour narrowly escaped death. The first time when militias burned down his family’s home in Darfur, western Sudan. The second time, two months later, when paramilitaries arrested her and other fleeing people as they tried to reach the border with Chad. “They slaughtered us like sheep,” the 32-year-old teacher said of the late April attack on her hometown, Al-Geneina: “They all want to uproot us. »
Amna Al-Nour and her three children now live in a school-turned-refugee shelter in Adré, Chad, among more than 260,000 Sudanese, mostly women and children, who fled what survivors and Human rights groups see it as a new outburst of atrocities in the greater western region of Sudan.
Twenty years ago, Darfur was the scene of genocide and war crimes, notably by the infamous Janjawid Arab militias against black populations. The scenario threatens to repeat itself, with reports of large-scale killings, rapes and destruction of villages in Darfur, amid a nationwide power struggle between the Sudanese military and armed forces. Rapid Support (FSR), a powerful paramilitary group. According to Tigere Chagutah, Regional Director of Amnesty International, “this spiral of violence bears terrifying similarities to the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur since 2003”.
Killings and fires
After years of growing tensions, fighting broke out in Khartoum in mid-April between the army and the RSF. They spread to other parts of the country, but in Darfur they took a different form: brutal attacks by the RSF and allied Arab militias on civilians, according to survivors and human rights defenders.
During the second week of fighting in Khartoum, the RSF and militias stormed Al-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, located near the border with Chad. In that assault and two others since, fighters unleashed a rampage of burning and killing that reduced large parts of the city, which has more than 500,000 residents, to rubble, according to sources. images shared by activists.
“What happened in Al-Geneina is indescribable,” says Sultan Saad Abdel-Rahman Bahr, who represents the Masalit community of Darfur: “All over the city there was a massacre. Everything was planned and systemic. The sultanate said in a report that more than 5,000 people had been killed in Al-Geneina and at least 8,000 others had been injured, as of June 12, in attacks by the RSF and Arab militias. The report describes three main waves of attacks on Al-Geneina and its surroundings in April, May and June, which it said were aimed at “ethnically cleansing and committing genocide against African civilians”.
The RSF grew out of Janjawid militias who, during the conflict of the 2000s, were accused of massacres, rapes and other atrocities against African communities in Darfur. Former President Omar Al-Bashir (1989-2019) formed the RSF from Janjawid fighters and placed them under the command of General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemetti”, from the Arab rizeigat tribe of Darfur.
FSR did not respond to repeated requests from The Associated Press (AP) to comment on the allegations regarding recent violence, including rape. On its social media, the paramilitary force described the fighting in Darfur as new tribal clashes between Arabs and non-Arabs.
“They want to eliminate us”
In interviews with AP, around 40 people and activists gave similar descriptions of waves of attacks by the RSF and Arab militias against Al-Geneina and other towns in West Darfur. The fighters stormed the houses, driving out the inhabitants, taking away the men and burning their homes. In some cases, they killed men, raped women and shot people fleeing in the streets. Almost all of those interviewed said the army and other rebel groups in the area were failing to protect civilians.
“They were looking for men. They want to eliminate us,” said Malek Harun, a 62-year-old farmer who survived an attack in May in his village of Misterei, near Al-Geneina. He says armed men attacked the village, looted the houses and arrested or killed the men. His wife was hit by gunfire from fighters in the village market. He buried her in the yard of his house. Arab neighbors later helped him escape and he arrived in Chad on June 5.
On July 13, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that a mass grave had been discovered outside Al-Geneina with at least 87 bodies. The NGO Human Rights Watch has also documented atrocities, including summary executions and mass graves in Misterei. The Sudanese Unit for Combating Violence against Women, a government organization, has recorded 46 cases of rape in Darfur, including 21 in Al-Geneina and 25 in Nyala (south), as well as 51 in Khartoum. According to Sulima Ishaq Sharif, head of the unit, the actual number of sexual violence cases is likely in the thousands.
“We are witnessing the emergence of a pattern of large-scale targeted attacks against civilians on the basis of their ethnic identity,” said Volker Perthes, the UN envoy to Sudan. International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan told the United Nations Security Council last week that he was investigating new alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
“You will die here”
Amna Al-Nour, whose husband was killed in tribal clashes in early 2020, says that in late April assailants stormed her neighborhood of Jamarek in Al-Geneina and set fire to dozens of houses, including his own. “They forced people out of their homes and then shot them,” she said by phone from the Chadian town of Adré.
She and her children (ages 4, 7 and 10) escaped with the help of Arab neighbors. They continued to move from town to town amid the clashes. In mid-June, with a group of 40 people, she began to walk down the 20 km road to the border, planning to flee to Chad. They were quickly stopped at a security force checkpoint.
Holding the group at gunpoint, the fighters asked about their ethnicity. Two of the fourteen men in the group were Arab and had lighter skin. The fighters abused and beat the others, who had dark skin and a Masalit accent. “Do you want to escape? You will die here,” one fighter told the Masalit.
They whipped all the members of the group, men and women. They hit the men on the ground with rifle butts and clicked the triggers of their guns to scare them away. A man was shot in the head and died immediately, reports Amna Al-Nour. They took the remaining men and four women in their twenties. Amna Al-Nour does not know what happened to them, but she fears the women were raped. They left the rest of the women and children to continue their journey.
Other refugees in Adré reported similar violence on the road leading to the border. “It was a relief to reach Chad,” said Mohammed Harun, a refugee from Misterei who arrived in Adré in early June. But the wounds [of war] will remain forever. »