UN experts say both sides in Sudan civil war may have committed war crimes

Sudan's military-controlled government rejects experts' report as politically motivated

Mohamed Chande Othman, chairman of the International Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan, presents its first investigative report at the European headquarters of the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. EPA

A report by UN experts has concluded after nearly a year-long investigation that both sides in Sudan's civil war may have committed war crimes in their ruinous 16-month-old conflict.

The report, angrily rejected by the military-controlled Sudanese government, recommended an arms embargo on the war-wracked nation and the creation of an international peacekeeping force to protect its civilians.

The report, released over the weekend, said that both sides in the civil war – the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – stand accused of “harrowing” war crimes, which it listed.

The war broke out in April last year after weeks of rising tension between the army and the RSF over their future role in Sudan. The conflict has had a devastating effect on the vast Afro-Arab nation of 50 million people. More than half are now facing acute hunger as a result.

The fighting has displaced nearly eight million people, with more than two million took refuge in neighbouring nations. Together with nearly three million Sudanese who fled their homes during previous bouts of civil strife, they have created the world's largest displacement crisis.

The war has also killed more than 20,000 people, according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation. He said the actual death toll could be much higher.

The report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan was commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council in October last year to investigate the circumstances and root causes of violations of human rights and international law by the two warring parties.

“As Sudan is in turmoil and its people within and outside the country are experiencing immense suffering, the Fact-Finding Mission concludes that the SAF [Sudanese Armed Forces], the RSF and their allied militias are responsible for large-scale violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

“Many of these violations amount to international crimes,” said the experts' report, using the UN phrase commonly used to refer to war crimes punishable under international laws.

On Saturday night, the Sudanese government said it rejected the report's conclusions, saying they went beyond its mandate. It also claimed that the report was politically motivated and supported the positions of UN Security Council members known to be hostile to Sudan. It did not elaborate.

“The report claims that fighting is engulfing 14 of Sudan's 18 states but still called for a ban on arms sales that applies to the Sudanese armed forces, the party that stands to that militia and protect citizens against its crimes,” the government said, referring to the RSF.

The call for an international peacekeeping force was “nothing but a dream harboured by the enemies of Sudan that will never come true”, it said.

“The protection of civilians has been a top priority for the government of Sudan,” the government said, saying that a deal on protecting civilians sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the US, reached in May 2023 and known as the Jeddah Declaration, remains the best available option.

The deal has been ignored by both the RSF and the military, although army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan has consistently singled out the paramilitary for not implementing its provisions.

The military boycotted US-sponsored peace talks last month on the grounds that priority should be given to implementing the Jeddah Declaration. The RSF attended the talks in Geneva.

The UN experts' report “recommends the deployment of an independent and impartial force with a mandate to protect civilians in Sudan. The protection of civilians is paramount, and the parties must comply with their obligations under international law”.

It added: “The Fact-Finding Mission considers that fighting will stop once the arms flow stops. Therefore, all states and entities must comply with the existing arms embargo in Darfur … This embargo should also be expanded to cover the entire country.”

The 19-page report added little to what has long been known about alleged war crimes in Sudan. However, its 11-month investigation concluded that pledges by the two warring sides to hold accountable individuals suspected of abuses came to nothing.

Already, the RSF has been accused by several entities, including the International Criminal Court and the US, of extrajudicial killings as well as ethnically-motivated killings in the western Darfur region, where its fighters and allied militiamen killed thousands and forced tens of thousands more to flee to neighbouring Chad in the summer of 2023.

The army is accused of killing thousands of civilians in air strikes and artillery shelling of RSF positions in densely populated areas, and of imprisoning and torturing suspected RSF supporters or sympathisers.

“The Fact-Finding Mission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the SAF and its allied forces have committed the war crimes of violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture,” said the report.

The gravity of accusations levelled against the military's rival appear more serious.

“The Fact Finding Mission further finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the RSF has committed the crimes against humanity of murder; torture; enslavement; rape, sexual slavery, and acts of a sexual nature of comparable gravity; persecution on the basis of intersecting ethnic and gender grounds in connection with the foregoing acts; and forcible displacement of population,” it said.

Al Shafie Ahmed contributed to this report from Kampala, Uganda.