The Hague / El Fasher — The International Criminal Court (ICC) is to step-up its investigations into crimes and atrocities allegedly being committed during the course of the war in Sudan and Darfur, and has appealed to all victim groups, civil society organisations, national authorities, and international partners, to provide video, audio, testimony, and other evidence, to advance the ICC investigations.
The latest appeal was launched in a video message today by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who voiced concern "about allegations of widespread international crimes being committed in El Fasher and its surrounding areas as I speak".
Khan makes "an urgent call for information and cooperation from all partners, wherever you are, to address the unfolding crisis in Darfur in Sudan. We are appealing to all victim groups, all civil society organisations, national authorities, and international partners that are able to do so, to engage with my office, and to provide any evidence and material relating to the ongoing atrocities being inflicted on the civilian population across Darfur."
Khan underlines that the ICC has an ongoing active investigation in relation to this situation, "and as I have previously confirmed, the terrible events in West Darfur, including El Geneina in 2023, are among our key investigative priorities. But in addition, I am extremely concerned about allegations of widespread international crimes being committed in El Fasher and its surrounding areas as I speak."
The ICC prosecutor stresses that his office is "investigating these crimes with urgency," having deployed teams on the ground in Chad, in Port Sudan, and in other locations in the region, to gather evidence and information to advance investigations. "We are seeking to work with all individuals and all agencies to collect relevant and reliable information, cogent evidence, that will strengthen our investigations and may support applications for arrest warrants," Khan says.
"Today I wish to call upon your help to seek your assistance to further accelerate our work, so that the law is felt by those that desperately need it right now."
Khan laments that "the information being collected by my office on a daily basis from Darfur seems to disclose an organised, systematic, and a profound attack on human dignity. And I believe based upon the information we are receiving that we are on the precipice of something even worse.
"The evidence my office has collected to date seems to show credible, repeated, expanding, continuous allegations of attacks against the civilian population, in particular attacks directed against camps for internally displaced persons. It seems to show the widespread, prevalent use of rape and other forms of sexual violence. It seems to disclose, consistently, the shelling of civilian areas, the looting of properties, and attacks against hospitals.
"I am particularly concerned by the ethnically motivated nature of these attacks against the Masalit and other communities. This is a crisis by any benchmark, that unfortunately seems to be accelerating, that seems to be deepening. That the suffering that's being endured is widening. And we cannot say that there has been no warning."
Khan cites his statements to the United Nations Security Council in July last year and again in January this year, when briefing the Council directly from Chad., "where I underlined as clearly as I could, the breadth and severity of the human tragedy that was unfolding".
Kahn also cites comments as also reported by Radio Dabanga two weeks ago, in which Under Secretary General of the United Nations Alice Nderitu, special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations for the Prevention of genocide, clearly noted that she believes that the conditions for genocide are aligning in Darfur.
"Chilling words. And her words were clear. That civilians are being attacked and killed because of the colour of their skin, because of their ethnicity, because of who they are".
"In support of our investigation into these crimes, we are calling, in particular, for any video, photographic, or audio material that those on the ground have been able to capture. We are asking civil society and all partners, all individuals, all of you watching, to provide any contacts that you have with those who may be able to provide testimony, information, or evidence to advance our investigations. And we're asking our national authority counterparts, states parties [to the Rome Statute] and non-states parties alike to share any evidence, any information that they're collecting, or that they have collected, or have available to them in relation to these profound allegations of international crimes that are increasingly emerging and cannot be ignored. We ask that you send any relevant information to us on our dedicated secure platform. (OTP link Otplink.icc-cpi.int)
"It is an outrage that we are allowing history to repeat itself once again in Darfur. We cannot, and we must not allow Darfur to become the world's forgotten atrocity once again. This is a defining moment across the major conflicts we face globally, we must show whether there is value in our statements, in our promise that all international crimes are deserving of accountability, that all people are equal, that all communities deserve the protection of the law, and that all lives have the same value," Kahn concludes.
ICC in Sudan:
In August 2021, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan paid his first visit to Sudan, following decisions by Sudan's transitional government to hand Darfur war crimes accused to the court, and to accede to and ratify the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
At the end of his visit, Khan announced the establishment of an ICC office with a permanent team in Sudan to further investigate the cases and gather more evidence against the indicted persons. He said he planned to return to Sudan in November and visit Darfur.
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The ICC issued arrest warrants against Ahmed Harun and Janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb in 2007.
Kushayb was transferred to the ICC's custody on June 9, 2020 after surrendering himself voluntarily in the Central African Republic. Upon his arrest, the Sudanese government announced its support for his transfer to the ICC. Kushayb is also charged with a number of crimes by the Sudanese authorities.
In February 2020, Sudanese authorities also agreed that Al Bashir, Harun, and Hussein would be transferred to The Hague to face justice.
Al Bashir was indicted by the ICC in 2009 for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, and in 2010 for genocide. He was convicted of corruption by a Khartoum court in December 2019 and sentenced to two years in a prison for the elderly. He still faces various other charges in Sudan, including staging a military coup in 1989.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Abdelrahim Hussein in 2012 for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He and Haroun are also being held in prison in Khartoum.
The ICC issued another arrest warrant in 2014, accusing Abdallah Banda, commander-in-chief of a breakaway faction of the Justice and Equality Movement, of war crimes in Darfur. The former rebel leader is still at large.
