The United Nations Security Council has enacted sanctions against two generals from Sudan’s paramilitary forces, attributing their involvement to significant violence and animosity in the ongoing war against the national military. This conflict has manifested in ethnically targeted assaults and severe atrocities.
The hostilities in Sudan erupted in mid-April 2023 following longstanding rivalries between military factions and paramilitary leaders. Initially starting in Khartoum, the conflict has since spread throughout various regions including Darfur. According to U.N. reports, casualties have exceeded 14,000 lives lost, with 33,000 additional injuries recorded. The situation has become dire, with potential famine looming over the nation.
The council’s sanctions committee has placed Maj. Gen. Osman Mohamed Hamid Mohamed, who leads operations for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), along with Maj. Gen. Abdel Rahman Juma Barkalla, the RSF commander in West Darfur, onto the sanctions list. A Twitter announcement from Britain’s U.N. Mission emphasized the necessity of these sanctions due to the threat posed to peace, security, and stability within Sudan, which includes numerous acts of violence and clear human rights violations.
As part of the U.N. sanctions, member states are required to freeze any assets of the generals and enforce a travel ban. Earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury had also implemented sanctions against them, freezing their U.S.-based assets and prohibiting financial dealings.
Darfur holds a haunting history, having been the epicenter of genocidal violence and war crimes, particularly inflicted by the infamous Janjaweed militias against communities identified as Central or East African. These atrocities claimed the lives of up to 300,000 individuals and forcibly displaced approximately 2.7 million more. The remnants of this tragic past have resurfaced, as noted by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, who indicated possible war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocidal acts being perpetrated by both combatant sides in the Darfur area. The RSF itself has origins connected to the Janjaweed forces.
A report released in May by Human Rights Watch stated that the actions of the paramilitary forces and their allied groups resulted in the deaths of thousands in Darfur in 2023, indicating a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing directed towards the region’s non-Arab residents.
According to the rights organization, the RSF and its allied militias have targeted the ethnic Masalit and other non-Arab communities in El Geneina, which serves as the capital of West Darfur state. Reports of severe abuses have surfaced, detailing torture of captured Masalit individuals, as well as instances of rape involving women and girls. Moreover, countless neighborhoods have been looted and devastated, as highlighted in the Human Rights Watch report titled “The Massalit Will Not Come Home: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan.”
Currently, the RSF exercises control over the capitals of four out of five states in Darfur and has escalated its military efforts to seize control of the remaining stronghold, the capital of North Darfur, El Fasher.