ICC prosecutor urges world to 'stop the bleeding' in Sudan before the region spirals out of control
New York City: Violence in Sudan has steadily increased over the past six months, the International Criminal Court prosecutor said Monday, with reports of rape, crimes against children and widespread harassment.
“Terror has become a common currency,” Karim Khan said at a meeting of the UN Security Council, “and terror is not felt by people with guns, but is often run by hungry people with nothing on their feet.”
Sudan has been at war between rival military factions for more than a year. Since it began in April 2023, nearly 19,000 people have been killed. More than 10 million are internally displaced and more than 2 million have fled as refugees to neighboring countries, making it the world's largest displacement crisis.
The country is on the brink of starvation as a severe food crisis looms, with many families reportedly already going days without food.
Khan said the ICC prioritized investigations into crimes against children and gender crimes and allegations of influence. These “profound human rights violations, widespread violations of personal dignity” are perpetuated by “political triangles that lead to the provision of arms, financial support from various sectors, and the inaction of the international community.”
His comments came during the court's recent semi-annual briefing to the Security Council on its Darfur-related activities. Nearly 20 years after the council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC, the court issued arrest warrants against former President Omar al-Bashir, former ministers Ahmed Mohamed Haroon and Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, and the former commander-in-chief. Justice and Equality Movement, Abdallah Banda Abakair Nourain, remains outstanding.
Khan said such failures to execute arrest warrants for accused persons have led to many unpleasant consequences, including “an environment of impunity and an outbreak of violence that began in April (2023), and which continues today, (in which) militants think. to get away with murder and rape.” The (Security) Council's bandwidth, the sense that it is too busy with other hot spots of conflict in other parts of the world; that we have forgotten our responsibilities under the UN Charter; ) the sense that Darfur or Sudan is a law-free zone where people can unleash their worst instincts, their worst base instincts, hatred and power politics, based on opportunities for profit.
He urged council members to “get back to the point” of the call for justice.
Khan said his office was investigating comments directed at both warring factions, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, as well as “those who finance them, supply them with weapons, give them orders, get some benefits”. “The events since April last year are subject to the principles of international humanitarian law and by using our resources as effectively as possible to ensure that every human life is seen to have equal value.”
He said that after “much difficulty” Sudanese authorities were finally assisting ICC investigators who were able to enter Port Sudan, collect evidence and engage Sudanese armed forces commander General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The real leader of the country.
“But one swallow doesn't make a summer,” Khan added, stressing the need for “continuous, deep cooperation with the Sudanese armed forces, General al-Burhan and his government moving forward.”
He said, “The proof of this commitment to accountability and lack of tolerance for impunity is to arrest former minister Haroon and present him in court by correctly implementing the court's order.”
However, Khan said the most recent significant efforts to engage with 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 “a lot of valuable documentary evidence” from displaced Sudanese nationals living there as refugees.
They have met 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, to analyze it and piece it together, to see what crimes. Any, it Shows and who is responsible for the hell on earth that has been so persistently unleashed against the people of Darfur.”
Khan said his office has used technological tools to gather and piece together a variety of evidence from phone, video and audio recordings, and that this has “proved to be very important in piercing the veil of impunity.”
Stating that the collective efforts of researchers, analysts, advocates and members of civil society have made significant progress, he expressed the hope that soon arrest warrants will be issued for those considered to be the most responsible. For crimes in the country.
Meanwhile, there was widespread alarm at what Khan described as “a trapezoid of chaos in that part of the continent”.
He continued: “If one draws a line from the Mediterranean in Libya to the Red Sea in Sudan, and then sub-Saharan Africa and then all the way to the Atlantic, Boko Haram is causing instability, chaos. And suffering in Nigeria, and then back to Sudan, (we) see maps and countries which is at risk of being destabilized or destabilized by this concentration of chaos and suffering”.
He warned members of the Security Council that in addition to concerns about the rights of the people of Darfur, “we have reached a tipping point where a Pandora's box of ethnic, racial, religious, sectarian (and) commercial interests will be unleashed.”
He added that “they will no longer be sensitive to the political powers of the world's major states or even to this council. Some real action is needed now to stop the bleeding in Sudan.”
