2023 Masalit massacres | |
---|---|
Part of the War crimes during the Sudanese civil war (2023–present) | |
Location | West Darfur, Sudan |
Coordinates | 13°27′N22°27′E / 13.450°N 22.450°E |
Date | 24 April 2023 – present |
Target | Masalit people |
Attack type | Mass murder, ethnic cleansing, genocidal massacre |
Deaths | At least 10,000–15,000 [1] |
Perpetrator | Rapid Support Forces and Arab Janjaweed tribes |
Motive | Anti-black racism, Arab nationalism, Arabisation |
The Masalit massacres are an ongoing series of massacres of the Masalit ethnic group in Sudan perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Sudan and its allies. The massacres began in 2023 during the Sudanese civil war when the RSF began committing organized mass killings of Masalit civilians in West Dafur.
The ongoing massacres include the Ardamata massacre, Misterei massacre and the Battle of Geneina, all of which targeted Masalit civilians within the area of Geneina. [2] [3] These incidents have been described by The Economist , [4] Genocide Watch, [5] US academic Eric Reeves, [6] and Khamis Abakar (Governor of West Darfur), [7] [8] as a genocide.
In December 2020, Sudan started to deploy troops to South Darfur "in large numbers", following recent tribal violence between the Masalit and Fula. [10] On 16 January fighting between Masalit people and Arab nomads in Al Geneina District, West Darfur, left 84 dead and 160 wounded. This was two weeks after the United Nations withdrew its peacekeepers from the region. [11] Based on a statement from the Darfur Bar Association, the incident began when a member of an Arab tribe was stabbed by another member of the Masalit tribe. [12] Following the unrest, a high profile delegation authorized by Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was sent to the region in order to assess the situation. [13]
On 17 January, a curfew was put in place by the Sudanese authorities, including a state of emergency in West Darfur region. [14]
The United Nations has urged the Sudanese government to see to the de-escalation of the violence in West Darfur and safeguard civilian lives. [15]
On 12 April, following several days of violence in West Darfur that led to the deaths of at least 144 people, chairman of the ruling Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, along with high-ranking security and military officials, visited Geneina, capital of West Darfur, where they held separate talks with the Arab Rizeigat and the non-Arab Masalit tribes. [16] [17] After the visit, the Dar Masalit Displaced People expressed their refusal to accept the result of the mediation headed by al-Burhan. They blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for the unrest in the region. [18] [19]
Following the Battle of Geneina, more than a thousand bodies were left in mass graves in the town of El Geneina. [20]
In January 2024, it was revealed that a report to the UN Security Council estimated that 10,000–15,000 people were killed in El Geneina. [1]
According to accounts by survivors, massacres were coordinated, specifically targeting Masalit and other dark-skinned inhabitants of Darfur, as opposed to the Sudanese Arab population. The Rapid Support Forces denied involvement, characterizing the situation as a tribal conflict, while Arab tribal leaders denied being involved in ethnic cleansing and held the Masalit responsible for starting the conflict. [20]
On 13 July 2023, a UN investigation discovered a mass grave of 87 individuals, all Masalit civilians, near Geneina. [21] The civilians were killed by the Rapid Support Forces between 13 and 21 June. [22] Many of the dead were from al-Madariss and al-Jamarik neighborhoods. [22] Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, deplored the killings and stated that the UN was not allowed access to the site until July. [22]
During an attack on 19 June 2023, emir Badawi Masri Balhredin, cousin of the Dar Masalit sultan, was killed by the RSF. [23] Several other prominent people were killed in attacks on 19 and 20 June, including Sadig Haroun, the Commissioner of Humanitarian Aid in the city, and several mayors and imams. [24] The Darfur Bar Association reported the next day that the refugee camps of Kreinik and Sirba were under siege by the RSF. All makeshift shelters and refugee camps had been burned down by 20 June. [24] Numerous villages, neighborhoods, and cultural sites in and around Geneina were destroyed, including the city's Grand Market and the palace of the Masalit Sultanate. [24]
On 22 June, the Dar Masalit Sultanate also released a statement claiming more than 5,000 civilians had been killed between 24 April and 24 June, the majority of whom were non-Arabs. [25] The Sultanate called the situation a "genocide", and footage emerged of corpses being used as barricades, and the bodies of men, women, and children strewn across the streets. [25] Refugees from West Darfur speaking to Al Jazeera in late June corroborated these claims, adding that similar situations unfolded in the West Darfur towns of Misteri, Konga Haraza, and Tendelti between April and June. [26] The RSF also attacked civilians in June on the road between Geneina and the Sudanese-Chadian border. [26] Many of these killings were at RSF checkpoints, where a pregnant woman was killed by militiamen for not having enough money for passage. [27] A Geneina refugee stated that "the road along El Geneina and Adré has a lot of bodies, nobody can count them". [28] Another source claimed over 350 people were killed on the road alone. [29]
While Masalit people were often the target of Arab militiamen, refugees claimed the militiamen shot at anyone black. [28] Prominent civil society members, including lawyers, humanitarian officials, and more, were targeted by militias and the RSF after and during the fall of the city. [30] [31] The Darfur Bar Association called the ethnic cleansing "a full-scale genocide". [30] The United Nations released a statement on 24 June deploring "wanton killings", but did not mention perpetrators. [32] An officer at the UNHCR office in Adre stated that the RSF intentionally killed men and boys to "[eliminate] future fighters as well as the line of ancestry of a specific ethnic group." [33]Prior to the Misterei attack, a group of 300 RSF fighters and allied tribes surrounded the town on the night of May 27, with the exceptions of the south and west, where the fighters entered the town. [34] The fighters came from the Awlad Rashid, Misseriya, and Awlad Janoob tribes, led by Mohamed Zain Taj Eldien and Hamid Yousef Mustafa. [35] Some of the assailants came from the Mima and Bargo ethnic groups. [35] The attackers arrived in twelve Land Cruisers, eight of which were RSF-owned, four of which were private. [35] Other fighters rode on around 150 horses and 140 motorcycles. Around 90 Sudanese Alliance militants, a signatory of the Juba Agreement, intervened in the town, led by Cpt. Elteybe Abdulla Ahmed. [35] Residents were fearful following the surrounding of the town, but there was "no way out". [34]
The first clashes began at Shorrong mountain right after sunrise, when Janjaweed launched an offensive from the west. Later offensives came from the north and south. [36] The Janjaweed came in waves, according to a veteran of the attacks, and many of the self-defense groups were spread out across and around the town in groups of 7 to 15. [36] The Masalit self-defense groups quickly fell to the Janjaweed. [36] Battles between the Sudanese Alliance and the Janjaweed lasted for three and a half hours, during which civilians stated the Arab fighters went house to house, killing darker-skinned Masalit and shouting "Kill the slave, kill the slave!" [35] [36]
Wounded civilians were brought to the Atik mosque, although Janjaweed stormed the place and shot at the wounded and those attending to them. [34] [36] After killing several people, Arab fighters cheered "We killed the zorga! (a slur for black people)." [36] The Janjaweed also looted houses, farms, and shops, before burning down many neighborhoods. [36] The Misterei market was completely looted and torched. [35] Satellite imagery taken on June 3 showed the entire town burnt down. [36]Khamis Abakar, then governor of West Darfur, denounced the killings as "genocide". [47] He was soon after executed by RSF militants for his statements on 14 June 2023. [7] [8]
As of August 2023, there is an increasing amount of proof suggesting that the RSF is initiating a systematic purge based on ethnicity in Darfur. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has issued a warning about the potential escalation into a full-scale genocide. [48] On 10 November 2023, Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner, drew parallels between the ongoing violence and the genocide in Darfur recognised by the U.S., where it is estimated that 300,000 people lost their lives from 2003 to 2005. He cautioned that a "similar dynamic might be unfolding." [49]
In October, Genocide Watch issued an alert concerning the situation in Sudan, explicitly characterizing the massacres performed by the Rapid Support Forces against the Masalit people as genocide. [5] This characterization was also shared by US academic Eric Reeves, specialized in Sudan's human rights record, [6] and The Economist. [50]
Josep Borrell, the chief of foreign policy for the European Union, has expressed his strong condemnation of the killing of more than 1,000 individuals in Ardamata. He has urgently appealed to the international community to take immediate action to avert a potential "genocide" in the area. [51]
The UK government, [52] witnesses and other observers described the violence in the region as tantamount to ethnic cleansing or even genocide, with non-Arab groups such as the Masalit being the primary victims. [53] Mujeebelrahman Yagoub, Assistant Commissioner for Refugees in West Darfur called the violence worse than the War in Darfur in 2003 and the Rwandan genocide in 1994. [54]
The Janjaweed are an Arab nomad militia group operating in the Sahel region that operates in Sudan, particularly in Darfur and eastern Chad. They are also active in Yemen due to participating in the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen. According to the United Nations definition, Janjaweed membership consists of Arab nomad tribes from the Sahel, the core of whom are Abbala Arabs, traditionally employed in camel herding, with significant recruitment from the Baggara.
The Masalit are an ethnic group inhabiting western Sudan and eastern Chad. They speak the Masalit language.
Geneina is a city in West Darfur, part of the dar Masalit region, in Sudan. It joined British Sudan at the end of 1919 through the Gilani Agreement, signed between the Masalit Sultanate and the United Kingdom, according to which it became a territory.
The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, was a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting against the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
A civil war between two major rival factions of the military government of Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allies under the Janjaweed leader Hemedti, began during Ramadan on 15 April 2023. Three minor (neutral) factions have also participated in the fighting: the Darfur Joint Protection Force; the SLM (al-Nur) under Abdul Wahid al-Nur; and the SPLM-N under Abdelaziz al-Hilu. Fighting has been concentrated around the capital city of Khartoum and the Darfur region. As of 14 November 2024, at least 61,000 people had been killed in Khartoum State alone, of which 26,000 were a direct result of the violence. As of 5 July 2024, over 7.7 million were internally displaced and more than 2.1 million others had fled the country as refugees, and many civilians in Darfur have been reported dead as part of the Masalit massacres.
The Geneina massacre, also the Battle of Geneina, was a series of major battles for control of Geneina, the capital of West Darfur in Sudan, between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias against Masalit self-defense militias and the Sudanese Alliance. The battles primarily lasted between April 24 and June 14, 2023, with major attacks and massacres by the RSF and allied militias on Masalit civilians in the city. After the killing of West Darfur governor Khamis Abakar on June 14, thousands of Masalit civilians were slaughtered in the city between June 14 and June 22 by the RSF and allied militias.
The Darfur campaign or Darfur offensive is a theatre of operation in the war in Sudan that affects five states in Darfur: South Darfur, East Darfur, North Darfur, Central Darfur and West Darfur. The offensive mainly started on 15 April 2023 in West Darfur where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) forces captured Geneina, the conflict came after several days of high tensions between the forces and the government.
The siege of El Fasher is an ongoing battle for control of the town of El Fasher in North Darfur during the Sudan conflict. The first battle for the city took place between 15 and 20 April 2023, and resulted in a ceasefire that held until 12 May. Clashes broke out again between 12 and 29 May, and ended with a more stable ceasefire that lasted until August. By September, the city had become a haven for refugees across the region, without enough food and water.
The Battle of Kutum was a conflict during the War in Sudan which occurred in and around the town of Kutum in North Darfur. The Rapid Support Forces quickly overran the city, and carried out massacres in the city and the neighboring Kassab IDP camp. The group then attacked neighboring villages in early June.
Khamis Abdullah Abakar also known as Khamis Abakar was a Sudanese politician, activist and former army commander who served as the Governor of West Darfur from 2021 until his assassination.
Misterei is a village located south of Geneina, Sudan.
Kreinik, or AlKuraynik or Kereneik, is a town in West Darfur, Sudan, located 50 miles (80 km) east of Geneina.
Abdel Rahman Jumma, also spelled Abdel Rahman Joma'a, is a Sudanese Major General in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who hails from Ed Daein, East Darfur. He faced accusations of grave violations, including war crimes and genocide, in the Darfur region during the war in Darfur and battle of Geneina including the Killing of Khamis Abakar. During the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), the Darfur Bar Association called for international prosecution and UN intervention in June 2023. Jumma's actions within the RSF sparked controversy due to their involvement in conflicts leading to unrest and displacement. In August 2023, the SAF's War Crimes Committee, led by Sudan's Transitional Sovereignty Council, listed Jumma among wanted individuals, emphasising crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide allegations.
Between May 27 and 28, 2023, armed Arab gunmen affiliated with the Rapid Support Forces attacked the West Darfur town of Misterei during the Battle of Geneina, killing 97 Masalit civilians after brief clashes with the Sudanese Alliance and Masalit self-defense groups, and destroying the town.
The civil war in Sudan, which started on 15 April 2023, has seen widespread war crimes committed by both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with the RSF being singled out by the Human Rights Watch, and the United Kingdom and United States governments for committing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Beginning on April 21, 2022, clashes broke out between Janjaweed and Masalit civilians in the Kreinik refugee camp near El Geneina, West Darfur. These led to massacres over the following days by Janjaweed and the Rapid Support Forces, with hundreds of civilians killed.
On 8 November 2023, the Rapid Support Forces and Janjaweed massacred between 800 and 2,000 in Ardamata, Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan, although estimates vary. The attack came after the Sudanese Armed Forces's 15th Infantry Division camp retreated to Chad. About 20,000 fled to Chad following the violence. Reports indicated ethnic targeting, specifically the Masalit community.
Ardamata is a neighborhood located in the northeastern part of Geneina, Sudan. The neighborhood is near the Sudanese Armed Forces's 15th Infantry Division camp.
On January 16, 2021, a massacre against Masalit civilians in Krinding IDP camp in Geneina, Sudan by Arab Janjaweed militants killed 163 people, mostly men, and injured 217 others. The massacre was the deadliest attack against Masalit in Geneina since attacks in 2019 against the Krinding camp that killed 72. The attack was also the first event in Krinding where Masalit self-defense groups fought back against Janjaweed.
Between April 3 and 8, 2021, clashes broke out between Arabs and Masalit in El Geneina, Sudan following the killing on April 3 of two Masalit men on a road separating Arab and Masalit neighborhoods in Krinding. At least 144 people were killed and 233 injured in the clashes. The clashes were the second major conflict in Krinding in 2021, with ethnic clashes occurring in January as well that killed 163 people.