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Sudanese Armed Group Attacks Darfur, Killing at Least 7

reporter 1222 — Sat, 25 Jul 2020 08:32:57 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A Sudanese paramilitary group attacked civilians in the war-scarred region of South Darfur, killing at least seven people and wounding 20 more, local activists and a rebel group said Friday.

The assault in the troubled province came a week after government-linked armed groups stormed a protest camp in North Darfur and killed 13 people.

The latest attack was staged Thursday by armed men who opened fire on people headed to their farms in the town of Gereida, some 107 kilometers (66 miles) south of South Darfur’s provincial capital, said Mohamed Abdel-Rahman al-Nayer, a spokesman for a rebel group known as the Sudan Liberation Movement.

Seven people were killed, said Adam Regal, a spokesman for a local organization that helps run displacement camps in Darfur, AP reported.

Late Friday, al-Nayer put the death toll at 15, saying several more people had succumbed to their wounds.

The flashes of violence in Darfur have threatened to destabilize the country’s fragile political transition. In April of last year, a sweeping pro-democracy protest movement toppled longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir, ushering in a transitional government jointly composed of civilian and military leaders.

Al-Bashir is imprisoned in the capital, Khartoum, on corruption charges, although the International Criminal Court has sought for a decade to arrest him on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity over his role in the Darfur conflict.

Sudan’s government has vowed to end the conflicts in the country’s far-flung provinces in hopes of slashing military spending, which eats up 80% of the national budget.

Rebel groups from Darfur and southern Sudan have for months engaged in peace talks. As part of a wider effort to hold former officials to account, the public prosecutor has pledged to investigate alleged atrocities in Darfur.

Yet sporadic violence continues, with each new attack fueling fears that ruling authorities may not deliver on their promises.

“The militia that committed this crime is supported by the old regime,” al-Nayer said, referring to the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary unit drawn from the Janjaweed militias accused of mass killings and rapes in Darfur in the 2000s.

The group continues to wield power in Khartoum. Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the unit’s commander, is deputy head of Sudan’s ruling council.

There was no immediate comment from the Rapid Support Forces about Thursday’s attack.

“We are calling on the government to play its role in protecting civilians, arresting criminals and disarming the militias,” al-Nayer said.

Sit-ins have sprung up across Darfur in recent weeks as people, mostly those displaced by the waves of fighting in the region, press demands for unhindered access to their farmlands and the resignation of provincial security officials, who they say fail to protect them against frequent paramilitary attacks.

A government delegation earlier this week visited the protest camp of Fata Borno in North Darfur, the site of the recent deadly crackdown. There, Gen. Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, deputy commander of the Rapid Support Forces, pledged to launch an investigation into the dispersal of the sit-in and deploy forces to better protect farmers during the agricultural season, according to Sudan’s state-run news agency.

Yet soon after the delegation met, footage surfaced online from Gereida, showing a woman carried on a stretcher with a bullet lodged in her head, homes torched in an alleged arson attack — and later — shrouded bodies lowered into a mass grave.

Meanwhile, a several hours’ drive north, around 32 activists were arrested in a dragnet targeting protesters and displaced people this week, said Regal, the camp spokesman.

In a statement Friday, the Khartoum-based Darfur Bar Association confirmed that several advocates had been swept up in North Darfur, including one of its own attorneys providing legal aid for detainees in Kutum, where security forces dispersed another protest camp last week.

The arrests of lawyers and advocates send “a clear message” that transitional authorities are continuing the same repressive Bashir-era tactics, the association said.

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Rights Groups Give al-Bashir to ICC

reporter 1222 — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 12:13:08 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Rights groups pushed Wednesday for the swift handover of Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court, aka ICC, after Sudan’s new authorities pledged to bring the ousted strongman to justice for alleged war crimes in Darfur.

Top Sudanese officials said Tuesday that the country’s new rulers had agreed with rebel groups to send Bashir and three former aides to The Hague-based court for their role in the conflict in the western Darfur region.

“The Sudanese authorities should translate these words into action and immediately transfer al-Bashir and other individuals (facing ICC arrest warrants) to The Hague,” Amnesty International acting secretary-general Julie Verhaar said.

“Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the ICC over the murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape of hundreds of thousands of people during the conflict in Darfur.

“A decision to hand him over to the court would be a welcome step towards justice for victims and their families.”

The conflict in Darfur, a region the size of France, erupted in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Bashir’s government, accusing it of economic and political marginalization.

The ICC has charged Bashir with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the conflict.

Bashir, who is detained in Sudan after being convicted of corruption, denies the allegations and evaded arrest for more than a decade, traveling overseas in open defiance of the ICC.

The court has also indicted three of his former aides, Ahmed Haroon, Abdulrahim Mohamed Hussain and Ali Kushied.

Bashir and the three others wanted by the ICC “have to go there,” Mohamed Hassan Al-Taishay, a member of Sudan’s new ruling sovereign council, said on Tuesday.

“We agreed that we fully supported the ICC and we agreed… that the four criminals have to be handed over,” Taishay said in the South Sudanese capital Juba where a government delegation was meeting rebel groups from Darfur.

He did not specify when they would be transferred to The Hague.

Rights groups alleged widespread abuses have taken place in Darfur, where the United Nations says about 300,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the conflict began.

“Sudanese security forces’ widespread attacks on civilians under Bashir’s campaign of terror, including pervasive sexual violence as a weapon of war, have had devastating impacts on the lives and livelihoods of their victims,” US-based NGO Physicians for Human Rights said in a statement.

“It is beyond time that his victims and their families receive justice.”

Taishay said that the Juba talks, still ongoing, focused on justice and reconciliation in Darfur.

He said they had agreed several mechanisms for achieving peace, including the establishment of a special court to investigate crimes in the region.

Sudanese government spokesman Faisal Mohamed Salih also said that the four accused would face the ICC.

“Bashir and others will be presented to the ICC court. This is a government decision,” Salih told AFP.

Bashir was ousted by the army in a palace coup last April after months of protests against his three decades of iron-fisted rule.

He was arrested and later sentenced to two years in a detention centre on corruption charges.

Anti-Bashir protesters, residents of Darfur and rebel groups from the region have consistently demanded that the former ruler be handed over to the ICC.

Years of conflict in Darfur and other regions and the secession of South Sudan in 2011 left the country’s economy in a shambles — the key factor for nationwide protests against Bashir last year.

Ten months after his ouster, acute shortages of bread, fuel and foreign currency continue to hamper Sudan’s economic revival.

“It’s been more than an hour I’m standing in a queue for bread,” said government employee Mahasien Ahmed, one of dozens waiting outside a bakery in north Khartoum.

Long queues of vehicles were also seen outside fuel stations across Khartoum.

“Every family is divided these days in a way,” said Hassan Ahmed, a private sector employee waiting to fill his car at a fuel station.

“Some members are standing in a queue for bread, some for fuel and others for cooking gas. We are suffering a lot.”

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