The US government yesterday officially accused a Sudanese paramilitary group and its proxies of committing genocide in a 20-month-long brutal civil war against the North African country’s military.
The declaration marks the most decisive stance the US has taken in the war between the forces of two formerly allied generals—Rapid Support Forces leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The conflict (see background) has killed an estimated 150,000 people and displaced more than 11 million people—about one-fifth of the country’s population. The US has declared genocide only six other times since the end of the Cold War in 1989.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday the RSF—a group with roots in the infamous Janjaweed militias—committed systematic executions of men and boys and sexual violence against women and girls based on ethnicity. In response, the US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on Dagalo and seven United Arab Emirates companies supporting the militia.
