The International Criminal Court has opened a new probe into alleged war crimes in western Sudan, with its chief prosecutor expressing major concern over escalating violence.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan made the announcement in a report to the UN Security Council on Thursday, following three months of war between feuding generals that have plunged the country back into chaos.
On the council's request, the ICC has been investigating crimes in Sudan's Darfur region since 2005. The court has charged former leader Omar al-Bashir with genocide and other offences.
Allegations of atrocities have mounted during the recent fighting, with the top UN official in Sudan calling for both sides to face accountability.
Around 3,000 people have been killed and 3 million displaced since violence erupted between Sudan army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who now heads the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group.
The pair were key figures in a 2021 military coup that derailed the country's transition to civilian rule after the ousting and detention of Bashir in 2019.
Statement of #ICC Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC to the @UN Security Council on the situation in #Darfur, pursuant to Resolution 1593 (2005)⤵️https://t.co/I1NrmRibJu
— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) July 14, 2023
Evidence of atrocities
The UN has warned of possible new massacres in Darfur, saying that the bodies of at least 87 people allegedly killed last month by the RSF and their allies had been buried in a mass grave in Darfur.
"The simple truth is that we are ... in peril of allowing history to repeat itself – the same miserable history," Khan told the Security Council.
"If this oft repeated phrase of 'never again' is to mean anything, it must mean something here and now to the people of Darfur that has lived with this uncertainty and pain and the scars of conflict for almost two decades," Khan said as he announced the new investigation.
According to the ICC prosecutor, alleged sexual and gender-based crimes are a focus of the new inquiry.
#ICC Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC announces that his Office has begun investigating alleged crimes occurring in the context of present hostilities in #Darfur #Sudan https://t.co/gntXoedZeB
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) July 13, 2023
'Cycle of violence'
Khan said in his report that even before the recent fighting broke out, Sudan's cooperation with UN investigators had deteriorated.
Sudan's ambassador to the UN, Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed, denied the claim, insisting: "The government of Sudan has constantly cooperated with the ICC."
The lack of justice for crimes in Darfur in the early 2000s, when Bashir set his Janjaweed militia upon non-Arab minorities, had "sown the seeds for this latest cycle of violence and suffering", Khan claimed.
Bashir was charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape and torture. The court has been demanding his extradition to The Hague ever since – without success.
After Bashir was overthrown in 2019, Khartoum announced it would hand him over to the court for prosecution, but this never happened.
Bashir and two leading figures in the former dictator's government who are also wanted by the ICC, Ahmad Harun and Abdel Raheem Hussein, are still at large.
So far the only suspect to face trial for violence committed in Sudan is senior Janjaweed militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb.
Rahman's defence lawyers are expected to open their case next month, and Khan said the latest fighting in Sudan "cannot be permitted to jeopardise" the trial.
The United Nations estimates some 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million people displaced in the 2003-2004 Darfur conflict.
(with AFP)
