Sudan crisis: ICC warns of ‘calculated’ atrocities spreading across Darfur

A "calculated campaign" of mass executions, sexual violence, and ethnic targeting is sweeping through Sudan’s Darfur region, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has warned, describing a pattern of criminality that is being replicated from city to city with impunity.

In a briefing to the United Nations Security Council on Monday, ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan delivered an assessment of the conflict, stating that the situation on the ground has "darkened even further." She detailed how the fall of key strategic locations has been followed by organised brutality against civilians, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The warning comes as the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) approaches the three-year mark, having devastated the nation and reignited the ethnic wounds of the early 2000s.

Ms Khan told ambassadors that the violence is no longer sporadic but part of a systematic strategy.

“The picture that is emerging is appalling - organised, widespread, mass criminality including mass executions,” Ms Khan said.

“Atrocities are used as a tool to assert control.”

The Prosecutor’s office has collected video, audio, and satellite evidence suggesting that atrocities are being "repeated town by town".

This follows the fall of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, to the RSF. Formerly the last stronghold of the Sudanese army in the region and a refuge for hundreds of thousands of displaced people, the city’s collapse has left non-Arab communities vulnerable to what Ms Khan described as "collective torture".

War on civilians

Sudan has been engulfed in conflict since April 2023, when a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, erupted into open warfare.

While the fighting began in Khartoum, the violence metastasised rapidly in Darfur. The RSF, which evolved from the notorious Janjaweed militias accused of genocide two decades ago, has been accused of returning to those same tactics: targeting the Masalit, Zaghawa, and Fur ethnic groups.

According to Ms Khan, evidence from El Fasher, particularly from late October, shows RSF fighters documenting their own crimes.

“Members of the RSF are seen celebrating direct executions and subsequently desecrating corpses,” she said. These acts are often filmed and shared on social media by the perpetrators, creating a digital archive of terror.

Echoes of El Geneina

The ICC is drawing direct parallels between recent events in El Fasher and the massacres committed in El Geneina in 2023. During that period, West Darfur witnessed some of the war's worst atrocities, where the Masalit community was targeted in house-to-house raids, forcing an exodus into neighbouring Chad.

Ms Khan noted that the patterns of looting, gender-based violence, and crimes against children seen in El Geneina are now being "replicated" elsewhere.

“This criminality is being repeated in town after town in Darfur,” she warned. “It will continue until this conflict, and the sense of impunity that fuels it, are stopped.”

Rape as a weapon of war

The briefing highlighted the use of sexual violence as a tactical weapon. Ms Khan emphasised that rape and gender-based crimes remain a priority for ICC investigations, though she acknowledged the immense cultural and security barriers preventing survivors from coming forward.

While the bulk of the recent evidence points to RSF abuses, the Deputy Prosecutor clarified that the ICC is also investigating allegations of war crimes committed by the Sudanese Armed Forces, including indiscriminate aerial bombings.

Shadow of impunity

The ICC pointed to the October conviction of Ali Kushayb, a former Janjaweed leader, as a flicker of progress. However, Ms Khan stressed that this single victory is overshadowed by the scale of current suffering.

She concluded with a demand for action regarding long-outstanding arrest warrants for former regime leaders, including deposed president Omar al-Bashir.

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“Action must now be taken,” she urged the Council, warning that without arrests at the highest level, justice for the people of Darfur remains incomplete.

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Sudan crisis ICC Darfur Genocide Rape International Criminal Court