Twenty years ago bands of the notorious Janjaweed militias turned Sudan’s sprawling western region of Darfur into what humanitarian groups labelled the 21st century’s first genocide. Today pillage, rape and mass killings by one of the paramilitary factions in Sudan’s seven-month bloody civil war, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a successor group of the Janjaweed, have again returned to the impoverished region.
Earlier this month, more than 800 people were killed as RSF and allied Arab fighters overran the army garrison in the West Darfur capital,El Geneina. The group has now taken three of Darfur’s five state capitals. The advance has prompted two Darfur rebel groups to join the fighting, declaring for the Sudanese army despite bitter long-standing grievances about the Arab-dominated government’s marginalising of the region’s black African communities. But the RSF seizure of the whole region still looks likely.
The RSF split from the army-led government seven months ago, plunging the country into civil war. There are persistent reports that its soldiers have been involved in widespread killings of civilians and of rape. In July, the International Criminal Court opened a new investigation into possible war crimes in Darfur.
The conflict is taking a devastating toll in the wider country. To date some 10,400 people are reported to have died , five million of the 46 million population have been displaced with 1.2 million fleeing abroad, mostly to Chad, South Sudan, and Egypt. The UN estimates that half the population needs aid to survive.
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International efforts led by the US and Saudi Arabia to broker a ceasefire have failed to find a compromise, while reports suggest both sides are receiving arms and external support, the RSF from the UAE, and the army from Egypt. The UN is distracted by Gaza and Ukraine, and the African Union has retreated to a policy of “non-interference” in the affairs of its members. Once again the world stands idly by and watches as genocide unfolds.