The International Criminal Court (CPI) has declared guilty of war crimes and against humanity against Ali Muhammad Abd al Rahman. The events judged date back to just over 20 years ago, in the war that devastated the province of Darfurwest of Sudan. Abdul Rahmanalias Ali Kushayb He listened without flinching on October 6 to the ruling of the court, which is based in The Hague.
Abd al Rahman was one of the leaders of the feared Arab militia Janjawid, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. As leader of the armed group ordered the execution of thousands of people. He murdered two of them himself with an axe. It is the first time that the ICC has convicted someone responsible for the crimes in Darfur. It is not the only one on the list of crimes committed then, nor of those that are being perpetrated in the current war.
The history of independent Sudan is associated with almost permanent armed conflicts. Since it was freed from British colonizers almost seven decades ago, it has been at war 56 years. It is said soon. It is the sum of the time that the three conflicts that it has suffered since then lasted, with a balance of more than three million deadin addition to natural disasters and episodes of famine. The country split in 2011 and South Sudan was born, a country not exempt from bloody internal armed conflicts either.
Several displaced people in the Darfur region (Sudan). / Reuters
To the three wars we must add the current one, which broke out in April 2023 and which pits two soldiers also accused of war crimes against each other. General Abdelfatah al Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and de facto president of the country, and also General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias Hemedtwho leads the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The two also participated in the previous Darfur war. A true ethnic cleansing ordered by the then Sudanese president, Omar Al Bashirknown as “the butcher of Darfur”. In 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against the former president accused of genocide.
Al Bashir was ousted from power in 2019 after a coup d’état hatched by his subordinates, Burhan and Dagalo. Previously there were massive protests in the country demanding democracy. With the dictator dethroned, who remains immune in Sudan, the country entered a phase of civil-military transition towards a . Instead of opening the polls, the two generals staged another blow and chose to fight for power with arms.
gold mines
Currently, the most intense fighting is again focused on Darfur. It is Dagalo’s forces that control much of this territory, which concentrates the gold mines most important in the country. The deposits are in the north, near the provincial capital, El Fasher. For more than 500 days, Dagalo, who has Colombian mercenaries among his forces, has maintained a brutal siege of this city, the last bastion in this region of Al Burhan. More than 260,000 civilians are trapped in El Fasher and in the refugee camps nearby with hardly any humanitarian aid.
File – A street in the Sudanese city of Al Fasher during fighting between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) / Stringer/Imageslive Via Zuma Pre / Dpa – Archive
Al Burhan, for his part, remains strong in Port Sudancity located in the Red Sea and of great strategic value since the 40% of maritime trade between Asia and Europe. The country’s capital, Khartoum, passes from hand to hand in a continuous struggle.
As has happened in the past, the two generals are responsible for attacks on civilians, schools and hospitalsin addition to using the rape as a weapon of war. They kidnap and recruit children and loot and hinder the delivery of humanitarian aid, according to human rights organizations.
The conflict has forced 12 million people to flee their homes. Of all of them, a third to neighboring countries, such as South Sudan. It is the tragic case that many of them are citizens of South Sudan who escaped the civil war that their country fought between 2013 and 2020. They took refuge in Sudan and are now escaping that war to protect themselves in their homeland. Half of Sudan’s 50 million people depend on emergency food supplies. And two million are at risk of famine, according to a Human Rights Watch report released last June.
Message to the perpetrators
The ICC began operating in 2003 and is recognized by 125 countries. Among them there are not USA, Russia, China o Israel. In fact, the president Donald Trump has imposed on the international court. The ICC was one of the favorites to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Sudan is not on the list that Trump says he is “done.”
In a statement, the ICC deputy prosecutor, Shameen Khanstated that the conviction of Abd al Rahman “sends a message to the perpetrators of atrocities in Sudan, both past and present.” In his writing he states that “justice will prevail and that they will be held accountable for inflicting unspeakable suffering on civilians.” Without a doubt, a message addressed to Al Durhan and Dagalo.
The sentence against Abd al Rahman will be announced in the coming days. He could be sentenced to life in prison.
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