“Across Sudan, civilians face unimaginable horror every day amid the bitter struggle between the RSF [Rapid Support Forces] and the Sudanese army for control of territory,” she said. Wednesday, August 2, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard.
In a report entitled “Death Has Knocked on Our Door”, the NGO notes a “widespread war crimes with indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilian population”. This report focuses on facts from Khartoum and the Darfur region in the west, and is based on interviews with 181 people in eastern Chad and from a distance.
The war between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah Al-Bourhane, and the Rapid Support Forces of General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, alias “Hemetti”, has already claimed more than 3,900 lives, according to the NGO Acled, and nearly four million displaced persons and refugees, according to the United Nations (UN)
“People are being killed in their homes or while desperately searching for food, water and medicine. They are caught in the crossfire as they flee, and deliberately shot in targeted attacks,” Callamard said. In addition, according to her, “Dozens of women and girls, some as young as 12, have been raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence by belligerents on both sides. There is no safe place.”
Attacks have targeted hospitals and churches, and looting is systematic. “The spiral of violence in the Darfur region, where the RSF and allied militias are wreaking death and destruction, rekindles the specter of scorched earth tactics used in the past, with sometimes actors identical,” she observes.
Extend the arms embargo
According to the NGO, “many medical and humanitarian centers have been destroyed or damaged in the country (…) Most of the cases of looting (…) involve members of the FSR. Attacks intentionally targeting humanitarian personnel or property, or health centers or medical units, constitute war crimes.”
Amnesty International is calling on the UN Security Council to extend the current arms embargo on Darfur to all of Sudan and to ensure compliance.
“The international community must dramatically increase humanitarian aid, and neighboring countries must ensure that their borders are open for civilians seeking safety,” said Agnès Callamard. “Countries with great influence over the parties to the conflict must use their position to end human rights abuses. »
Finally, insists Amnesty, “the Human Rights Council must (…) set up an independent investigation and accountability mechanism which will be responsible for monitoring, collecting and preserving evidence of human rights violations committed in Sudan”.