New York — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Monday he believes war crimes have been committed by both sides in the Darfur region of Sudan since fighting erupted between rival generals in mid-April.
"Based on the work of my office, it's my clear assessment that there are grounds to believe that presently Rome Statute crimes are being committed in Darfur by both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and affiliated groups," Karim Khan told the U.N. Security Council in a remote briefing from Chad's capital, where he is meeting with Sudanese refugees.
The Rome Statute established the ICC and the four main international crimes it investigates -- genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.
"The alleged atrocities that have taken place in El Geneina form a central line of investigations that my office is pursuing at this current moment," he said of the capital of West Darfur. "I can confirm to the council that we are collecting a very significant body of material, information and evidence that is relevant to those particular crimes."
The United Nations and human rights groups have raised alarms about ethnically targeted attacks on Masalit people in West Darfur that have killed hundreds of civilians since fighting erupted nine months ago between the Sudanese army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. There has also been widespread looting, burned villages and rampant sexual violence.
Darfur saw large-scale ethnic violence and crimes against humanity in the early 2000s, and the U.N. fears a repeat now.
The U.N. Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, and it is based on that mandate that Khan's office is investigating recent human rights violations.
Efforts to halt the fighting have so far failed, despite regional efforts by the African Union and the East African regional bloc IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development), as well as the United States, European Union, Saudi Arabia and some of Sudan's neighbors.
Uncooperative
Khan told Security Council members he has received minimal cooperation from the Sudanese government despite a pledge from Burhan, whom he met in New York in September on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings.
"Thirty-five requests for assistance remain unanswered by the government of Sudan," Khan said. The only progress he reported was the issuance in December and January of some single-entry visas for his team members after months of requests for multiple entry visas. He said Khartoum has also named a person to be the focal point to deal with his office.
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The prosecutor said the RSF has been extremely uncooperative.
"In November, we finally received the names of individuals that they contended were part of an investigative committee," Khan said. "But not a scrap of paper, not a scintilla of information, has been transferred from the RSF to the office, either."
Sudan's envoy denied that his government had been uncooperative. Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed said Sudanese officials have given the court all the documents they have found and invited Khan to come to Sudan four times, but he turned them down.
A group of Security Council diplomats issued a statement expressing alarm about the rampant use of sexual violence in the conflict and called for accountability for perpetrators.
"We commend the decision of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, to accelerate the investigation of recent allegations of crimes in Darfur, prioritizing crimes against children and crimes of sexual and gender-based violence," the statement said.
"Since the beginning of the conflict in April 2023, different forms of conflict-related sexual violence, including rapes, gang rapes, abductions, sexual slavery and exploitation, trafficking -- sometimes used as a tactic of war -- have been reported in all conflict-affected areas, in particular in Khartoum, Al Jazira, Darfur states and the Kordofan regions. We fear that the reported numbers are below reality," they warned.
The United Nations estimates that the conflict in Sudan has displaced 7.1 million people inside the country, and more than 1.5 million have fled to neighboring countries, particularly Chad, Egypt and South Sudan. Nearly 25 million people currently need humanitarian assistance and protection.
