Sudan: Atrocities ‘repeated town by town’, ICC prosecutor tells UN Security Council

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region are spreading from town to town in an organized campaign of violence that includes mass executions, rape and ethnic targeting, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told the UN Security Council on Monday.

Briefing ambassadors, ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan said the situation in Darfur had “darkened even further,” with civilians subjected to what she described as collective torture amid a widening war between Sudan’s rival military forces.

“The picture that is emerging is appalling: organised, widespread, mass criminality including mass executions,” Ms. Khan said. “Atrocities are used as a tool to assert control.”

Epicentre of ‘profound suffering’

Sudan has been engulfed in conflict since April 2023, when fighting erupted between former allies the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces militia (RSF).

What began as a power struggle metastasised into conflicts across the country, most devastating in the Darfur region, which also saw longstanding ethnic tensions – which prompted allegations of genocide in the early 2000s – being reignited.

She said the fall of North Darfur’s regional capital El Fasher to the RSF had been followed by a “calculated campaign of the most profound suffering,” particularly targeting non-Arab communities.

The crimes, she said, include rape, arbitrary detention, executions and the creation of mass graves, often filmed and celebrated by perpetrators.

UN Photo/Evan Schneider

Nazhat Shameem Khan (on screen), Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), briefs the Security Council.

Fighters ‘celebrating executions’

Based on video, audio and satellite evidence collected, the ICC Prosecutor has concluded that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed in El Fasher, particularly in late October, following a prolonged RSF siege of the city. 

Ms. Khan said video footage showed patterns similar to those documented in earlier atrocities in Darfur, including the detention, mistreatment and killing of civilians from non-Arab tribes.

“Members of the RSF are seen celebrating direct executions and subsequently desecrating corpses,” she said.

El Geneina investigations

The Office of the Prosecutor is also advancing investigations into crimes committed in El Geneina, where witnesses have provided accounts of attacks on displacement camps, looting, gender-based violence and crimes against children.

In 2023, El Geneina witnessed some of the worst violence of the war as RSF fighters and allied militias carried out massacres against the Massalit community, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee into neighbouring Chad.

UN officials and human rights investigators described the violence as ethnically motivated and warned of possible crimes against humanity.

Evidence now indicates that the patterns of atrocities seen in El Geneina have since been replicated in El Fasher, Ms. Khan said.

“This criminality is being repeated in town after town in Darfur,” she warned. “It will continue until this conflict, and the sense of impunity that fuels it, are stopped.”

© Mohamed Khalil

A school in El Geneina in West Darfur State, which had been serving as a displaced persons shelter, is burned to the ground. (file)

Rape as a weapon of war

Sexual violence, including rape, is being used as a weapon of war, Ms. Khan said, adding that gender-based crimes remain a priority for ICC investigations. She acknowledged cultural and security barriers that prevent survivors from reporting abuse, stressing the need for gender-sensitive and survivor-centred investigations.

While much of the briefing focused on RSF abuses, the Deputy Prosecutor said the ICC was also documenting allegations of crimes committed by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), underscoring that all parties to the conflict are bound by international law to protect civilians.

Impunity overshadows progress

Ms. Khan cited the conviction last October of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known as Ali Kushayb – a former Janjaweed militia leader – as a landmark step toward accountability, but cautioned that the scale of ongoing atrocities far outweighed any sense of progress.

She closed with a pointed call on Sudanese authorities to act against senior suspects long sought by the Court, including former president Omar al-Bashir, former interior minister Ahmad Harun and former defence minister Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein.

“Action must now be taken,” she said, warning that justice for Darfur’s victims would remain hollow without arrests at the highest level.