US determines Sudan’s RSF paramilitary group committed genocide in country’s civil war

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN

(CNN) — Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have committed genocide over the course of the more than year-long civil war in Sudan, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.

This is the second genocide committed in Sudan in less than three decades, following the genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s in which hundreds of thousands of people died.

In a statement Tuesday, Blinken said the RSF and its allied militias “have continued to direct attacks against civilians,” have “systematically murdered men and boys—even infants—on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence.”

“Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies,” Blinken said.

“Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan,” he said.

Blinken had previously determined that the RSF and its allied militias had committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during the course of the civil war. He also found that both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – the key parties to the conflict – had committed war crimes.

CNN has reported extensively on the atrocities committed by the RSF and its allied militias: a gruesome massacre in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina, a campaign to enslave men and women there, as well as forced recruitment in Sudan’s central Al Jazira state.

The ongoing civil war, which began in April 2023, has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes. Diplomatic efforts to bring the conflict to an end have failed.

The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions and visa restrictions on the leader of the RSF, Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa, also known as Hemedti, “for his role in systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people,” Blinken said.

Before commanding the RSF, Hemedti was a leader of the Janjaweed militia that, backed by the Sudanese government at the time, perpetrated genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s.

The visa restrictions against Hemedti and his family members, which block them from coming to the US, are specifically in response to “gross violations of human rights in Darfur, namely the mass rape of civilians by RSF soldiers under his control” during the ongoing civil war.

On Tuesday, the US also imposed sanctions on seven United Arab Emirates-based companies and one Sudanese person with ties to the RSF.

“The United States does not support either side of this war, and these actions against Hemedti and the RSF do not signify support or favor for the SAF,” Blinken said. “Both belligerents bear responsibility for the violence and suffering in Sudan and lack the legitimacy to govern a future peaceful Sudan.”

“The United States continues to evaluate additional actions to impose costs on those perpetuating the conflict and atrocities against the Sudanese people,” he said.

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