Sudan - November 2023

In November, the UN and other monitors reported a resurgence of ethnic violence in West Darfur State following an assault on the town of Ardamata by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militias, which are fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the ongoing armed conflict. Between 800 and 1,500 people are estimated to have been killed in just a few days of violence which, like the ethnic killings that took place in the state’s capital, El Geneina, between April and June 2023, is reported to have been systematically perpetrated by the RSF and Arab militia against the Masalit community and, to a lesser extent, other non-Arab groups. According to witnesses, after wresting control of Ardamata from the SAF, the RSF and militia went through the town’s internally displaced people’s camp and other residential areas, detaining and summarily executing men (particularly Masalit community leaders), raping women and forcing thousands to flee to Chad. The UNHCR warned that a similar dynamic may be developing in Darfur to that which drove the region’s genocide in the early 2000s. Earlier in November, the UN expressed grave concern over reports that, in RSF-controlled parts of Darfur, women are being abducted and held in ‘inhuman, degrading slave-like conditions.’ 

Update: In a report dated 5 September 2024, the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that abuses perpetrated by the parties to the country’s ongoing civil war amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Sources: United Nations (1), Sudan Tribune, Human Rights Watch, The Economist, Africa Confidential, The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, United Nations (2), Sudan War Monitor, United Nations (3)