NOSHatim Abdallah El Fadil in the refugee camp near the border with Chad
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 13:05
Elles van Gelder
correspondent Afrika
Elles van Gelder
correspondent Afrika
Twenty years after a mass murder in the Sudanese region of Darfur, horrific testimonies of ethnic violence are again emerging. The UN reported this week that there may be thirteen mass graves around a town in West Darfur, near the border with Chad. Meanwhile, there are also large-scale bombings throughout the country, causing dozens of civilian casualties.
It has led to the largest flow of refugees in the world. More than seven million people are internally displaced, and more than a million Sudanese have left the country. Of them, 400,000 have fled to neighboring Chad. Like Hatim Abdullah. He built a new house with straw, branches, cloths and tarpaulins just across the border with Sudan in the town of Adré.
Like many others in the camp, he comes from El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, just thirty kilometers from this border. “I have carried many deaths,” says Abdallah, who calls himself an activist and has worked for several international organizations. “Not only adults but also children. The RSF came and besieged our city, they murdered and raped. I myself was on an execution list.”
Since mid-April, a battle has been going on in Sudan between two generals, one from the RSF militia and the other from the regular army. Both want to have power over the country. Civilians become victims of the fighting, of artillery fire and bombings in the capital Khartoum, but also in the Darfur region. According to a statement from the US State Department, the army is deploying in the town of Nyala barrel bombs in, cheap and deadly bombs, which are not precise and have already led to dozens of deaths.
Attack on ethnicity
In addition to fighting between the army and the RSF militias, something else is also happening in Darfur: attacks on civilians because of their ethnicity. There are testimonies that the RSF and affiliated Arab-Sudanese militias specifically search for local leaders, such as Abdallah, but also that they target all citizens of African-Sudanese descent. People from the city of El Geneina in particular report large-scale violence, most of whom fled to Chad in June after a long siege of the city.
Correspondent Elles van Gelder and cameraman Sven Torfinn traveled to the border between Chad and Sudan to record the stories of refugees:
Residents fled ethnic violence in Darfur: ‘These are systematic attacks’
On a mat in front of a hut, women fall into each other’s arms, crying. They are without men, they have all been killed. One of the women nods to her nephew. “The only reason he made it is because we hid him under our skirts at militia roadblocks as we fled to Chad,” his aunt said.
The boy was lucky because his mother and aunts served as human shields. It is impossible to say how many people were killed. Local leaders estimate thousands of deaths, and a local Darfur radio station estimates more than 10,000. “Nobody knows,” says Abdallah. “There could be many times more. There are mass graves.”
NOSHis aunts protected their nephew from militias by hiding him under their skirts
International attempts to stop the conflict have failed. Many agreements were made, all of which were broken. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, warned months ago that there is a risk of a repeat of history in Darfur. The UN adviser on the prevention of genocide has also called for quick action.
Genocide
It is not the first time that there has been ethnic violence in Darfur. Twenty years ago, an estimated 300,000 Sudanese of African descent were killed. At the time the Arab militias were called Janjaweed, the RSF is a continuation of that.
The Janjaweed was led by one of the generals now fighting for power, the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. He is known as Hemedti.
The then Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, under whom the Janjaweed fell, was charged with genocide in Darfur, but never extradited. His stooge Hemedti was never punished and is now one of the country’s leaders, along with the general he is fighting.
But alarm bells do not seem to be ringing yet internationally. “They are coming to finish the plan they started twenty years ago,” Abdallah also thinks. “The violence has never completely stopped, and no one has been punished.”
He still fears for his life, so close to the porous border, where they can sometimes hear the fighting. “Do thousands of people have to die because of this power struggle? It’s a shame.”
In the podcast De Dag, Elles van Gelder talks about the shocking testimonies she heard and the powerlessness she felt. Why does the world turn away from this? You can watch the podcast here listen.
2023-09-16 11:05:25
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