Sudan: RSF members sentenced to death in absentia
On July 12th, a court in Port Sudan, a city under army control, sentenced paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and 15 other defendants to death in absentia for the killing of governor Khamis Abbakar and war crimes, state media reported.
According to government-aligned Asharq Al Awsat, West Darfur governor Khamis Abbakar was killed in June 2023 following the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)’s takeover of El-Geneina, the state capital, hours after he accused the RSF and allied militias of carrying out attacks against civilians.
As reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP), Dagalo, along with his brother and deputy, Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, and several RSF officers and tribal leaders from Arab communities in West Darfur, were sentenced.
This decision marks the first conviction of senior RSF officials since the conflict between the paramilitary group and the Sudanese army began in April 2023.
Sudan’s state news agency SUNA reported that the convictions covered charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and attacks on civilians and public facilities.
UN experts estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 people, predominantly from the Massalit ethnic group, were killed in El-Geneina amid the violence. The RSF continues to deny allegations of genocide and other war crimes.
The court stated it would escalate the case to the Supreme Court for review and pursue the arrest and extradition of those convicted via Interpol and other international agencies.
Sudanese army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Dagalo collaborated to orchestrate the 2021 coup, which disrupted Sudan’s move towards civilian governance. Their subsequent dispute over plans to integrate the RSF into the regular army ultimately sparked conflict.
Over three years into the conflict, fighting between the army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced more than 11 million, and created what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
The UAE-backed RSF are widely perceived as successors to the Janjaweed (“Devils on Horseback”) militia, which perpetrated the Darfur genocide between April 2003 and March 2004.
Janjaweed militants were responsible for ethnically motivated violence against ethnic Africans on behalf of the Arab-Sudanese government.
Asharq Al Awsat and agencies, Maghrebi.org
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