A Cry for justice in Sudan
By Omer Shurkian
During my routine viewing of social media, I have come across three harrowing video clips that depict egregious acts of brutality and bestiality as committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSFs) throughout the ongoing war in Sudan, particularly in West Darfur State and the national capital, Khartoum.
The first one shows an apparently Massaleit woman narrating her treacherous journey while fleeing West Darfur into neighbouring Chad. In this heartbreaking video, she is recorded as saying: ‘They [the RSFs] said other people are staying; you have decided to leave; God can make you live this year; al-Geneina [city, the capital of West Darfur State,] is not yours at all; go to Chad. I said OK. As men were coming, they [the RSFs] shouted at them, calling them sodomites! Come here! Where are you going, you sodomites! They were asked about what they had. They replied that they had nothing. OK, they were then ordered to come and enter into a container: they were herded like animals. They were beaten up, taken out during the night and killed. One of them [the RSFs] said: “Leave them; they are poor; we have killed a lot of them – that is, the Massaleit tribesmen.” Another said: “Many of them remain alive; we have not finished them yet!” While we were trekking, we saw bodies of dead people everywhere: two, three, four corpses and so forth on the roadside, even a woman, child and the old. On one side, there were eight corpses tied together: they [the RSFs] usually tell them to lie down, tie them together and kill them. They quite often check on the sex of children: if they are males, they will be slaughtered with a knife and thrown onto fire. Sometimes, they take them away; men are always taken away, tortured and eventually killed. If the children are females, they will be spared. To protect the male children, I had to camouflage them in a female dress. They inspected us thoroughly and commandeered everything that we had. You will be taken aside and killed instantly if you are found with a weapon. They asked about your tribe: “Are you Burgo, Tama, Zaghawa, Mima and so forth? If you belong to the Massaleit tribesmen, they pull you aside and shoot you dead.’
Another equally tragic video clip demonstrates an apparently middle-aged man being tied tightly with a rope and made to lean onto an army pickup; he is asked what brigade he belongs to, in which he has answered: paratroopers. The man appears to have been ripped off his shirt and left with a vest and a pair of trousers; he was bleeding from his mouth, with multiple wounds and fresh bruises clearly shown on his back as a sigh of violent beating. He is covered in dust, unstoppably flogged with a whip without mercy, kicked, verbally insulted and called filthy. He is knocked down onto the ground and once more kicked: the beatings go on. One of the RSF fighters is being heard saying kill him straight away, while they are pointing their guns at him.
Needless to say, the third video clip of a minute and nine seconds portrays three young men being continuously flogged by two RSFs soldiers; they are kicked on the ground, and beaten up incessantly, concurrently with torrential and vocal insults, despite the searing heat of Sudan. The victims are seen crying and pleading for mercy while the soldiers are ordering them to roll over and over. The soldiers are firing on the ground to instil terror upon them. One soldier has leaned down to one of the victims and is heard saying, ‘ If you belong to [the late Dr] John Garang, why are you here?’
It is worth noticing that these heinous crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed in the past by the Sudan Armed Forces and their armed militia during the entire period of civil war in South Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, the Blue Nile and in the never-stopped hostilities in Darfur. Now, since the war erupted in the national capital, Khartoum, on 15 April 2023, the urban population in the capital and other cities in Sudan have now realised what they did not believe that was happening in conflict-ravaged areas of the country at large. The address delivered by the attorney-general of the International Criminal Court in the UN a few days ago was encouraging. Still, the question remains to be answered: what are the means and mechanisms to enforce international humanitarian law and bring those guilty of such despicable crimes to justice? The oppressed and arbitrarily prosecuted people of Sudan are crying for justice. So may conscience-bearing, peace-loving and God-fearing people can see what is happening in Darfur and the capital, as depicted by the attached videos, and react to the voices of victims in their plea for justice and retribution.