ICC prosecutor urges world to 'stop the bleeding' in Sudan before region spirals out of control
NEW YORK CITY: Violence in Sudan has continued to escalate over the past six months, an International Criminal Court prosecutor said Monday, with reports of rape, crimes against children and persecution on a massive scale.
“Terror has become a common currency,” Karim Khan told a UN Security Council meeting, “and terror is not felt by people with weapons, but by people who are running, very often with nothing on their feet, starving.”
War between rival military factions has been raging in Sudan for more than a year. About 19,000 people have been killed since it began in April 2023. More than 10 million are internally displaced and more than 2 million have fled to neighboring countries as refugees, making it the world's largest displacement crisis.
The country is on the brink of famine as a severe food crisis looms, with many families reportedly already often going days without food.
Khan said the ICC prioritized investigating allegations of crimes against children and gender-related crimes. This “profound violation of human rights, mass violation of personal dignity” continues to be supported by “the provision of arms, financial support from various sectors and political triangulations that lead to inaction by the international community,” he added.
His comments came during the Security Council's most recent semi-annual briefing on the court's Darfur-related activities. Nearly 20 years after the council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC, the court issued arrest warrants for former president Omar Al-Bashir, former ministers Ahmad Mohammed Harun and Abdel Raheem Mohammed Hussein, and the former commander-in-chief of the Justice and Equality Movement, Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain, remains excellent.
Khan said such failures to execute arrest warrants against the indicted had contributed to several unwelcome consequences, including “a climate of impunity and an outbreak of violence that began in April (2023) and continues today, (in which the warring parties believe they can to escape murder and rape; the feeling that the bandwidth of the (security) council is too limited, it is too preoccupied with other epicenters of conflicts, hot wars in other parts of the world; that we have lost sight of the plight of the people in Darfur, somehow we have forgotten our obligations under the UN Charter; (a) the feeling that Darfur or Sudan is a lawless zone in which people can act with abandon on their worst inclinations, worst base instincts, politics of hatred and power, opportunities for profit.
He called on councilors to “bring back the essence” of the call for justice.
In comments aimed at both warring factions, the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Units, as well as “those who fund them, supply them with arms, give orders and get certain benefits”, Khan said his office was investigating and “using our resources to most effectively to ensure that the events since April last year are subject to the principle of international humanitarian law and the imperative that every human life must be considered equal.
He said that after “great difficulties” the Sudanese authorities were finally cooperating with ICC investigators, who were able to enter Port Sudan, collect evidence and negotiate with General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, commander of the Sudanese armed forces and the country's de facto leader.
“But one swallow is not a summer,” Khan added, underscoring the need for “continuous, deepening cooperation with the Sudanese armed forces, with General Al-Burhan and his government going forward.”
He said “one concrete way this commitment to accountability and lack of tolerance for impunity can be demonstrated is through the proper enforcement of court orders”, including the arrest of former minister Harun and his arraignment.
However, Khan said that the last major efforts to engage in the leadership of the Rapid Support Force have so far proved fruitless.
Meanwhile, he said, ICC investigators have visited neighboring Chad several times and collected “very valuable witness evidence” from displaced Sudanese citizens living there as refugees.
They met with representatives of Sudanese civil society in Chad, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Europe, he added, “to get and preserve their accounts and their stories, analyze them and put them together to see what crimes, if it shows who is responsible for the hell on earth that is being so stubbornly, so persistently unleashed against the people of Darfur.
Khan said his office has used technological tools to collect and compile various forms of evidence from phones, videos and audio recordings, and that this is “proving to be extremely important in breaking through the veil of impunity”.
The joint efforts of investigators, analysts, lawyers and members of civil society have led to significant progress, he added, and expressed hope that he would soon be able to announce that arrest warrants had been sought for the individuals believed to be most responsible. for crimes in the country.
Meanwhile, Khan has sounded a wider alarm over what he described as “a trapezoid of chaos in this part of the continent”.
He continued: “If one draws a line from the Mediterranean Sea in Libya, down to the Red Sea in Sudan, and then draws a line to sub-Saharan Africa and then to the Atlantic, where Boko Haram will cause instability, chaos and suffering in Nigeria and then back to Sudan ( we see) the map and the countries that are in danger of being disturbed or destabilized by this concentration of chaos and suffering.
He warned Security Council members that, in addition to concerns about the rights of the people of Darfur, “we are reaching a tipping point where the Pandora's box of ethnic, racial, religious, sectarian (and) commercial interests will be unleashed.”
He added that “they will no longer be subject to the political powers of the great states of the world or even to this council. Real action is now needed to stop the bleeding… in Sudan.”
