US determines Sudan’s RSF paramilitary group committed genocide in country’s civil war

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have committed genocide over the course of the more than year-long civil war in Sudan, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have committed genocide over the course of the more than year-long civil war in Sudan, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday. This is the second genocide committed in Sudan in less than three decades, following the genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s. Blinken had previously determined that the RSF and its allied militias had committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during the course of the conflict that began in April 2023. He also found that both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – the key parties to the conflict – had committed war crimes. In a statement Tuesday, Blinken said the RSF and its allied militias “have continued to direct attacks against civilians,” have “systematically murdered men and boys—even infants—on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence.” “Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies,” Blinken said. “Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan,” he said. The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions and visa restrictions on the leader of the RSF, Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa, also known as Hemedti, “for his role in systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people,” Blinken said.