US sanctions Sudan's Hemedti, declares RSF committed genocide
The United States also placed sanctions on companies in the United Arab Emirates it said were procuring weapons for the Rapid Support Forces.
WASHINGTON — The Rapid Support Forces’ systemic atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region amounts to genocide, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Tuesday as the Biden administration unveiled sanctions on the paramilitary group’s leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The Treasury Department sanctioned Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, due to the RSF’s “litany of documented war crimes and atrocities, including ethnically motivated killings and sexual violence as a weapon of war.” Under Dagalo’s leadership, the RSF has also used denial of humanitarian relief as a weapon of war against Sudanese civilians, the department said.
A power struggle between Dagalo and the country’s de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, erupted into civil war in April 2023. Fighting between the RSF and Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces has since created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, killing tens of thousands of Sudanese and leaving more than 30 million people in need of aid.
Some 11.5 million people are internally displaced, with a further 3.2 million seeking refuge in neighboring countries, according to the United Nations. Rates of hunger and malnutrition have soared during the war, with a global hunger monitor declaring in December that famine is present in parts of North Darfur and the Nuba Mountains.
The Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on seven RSF-owned companies based in the United Arab Emirates and one individual for their alleged roles in procuring weapons for the paramilitary group.
The UAE has emerged as a major foreign player in Sudan, a strategically located country rich in gold and other natural resources. UN sanctions monitors have described “credible” reports that it was funneling weapons to the RSF from across the border in neighboring Chad.
Abu Dhabi has long denied accusations by the Sudanese government and monitoring groups that it is covertly arming the RSF and says its role in the war-ravaged country is purely humanitarian.
In December 2023, Blinken formally determined that members of both the SAF and the RSF had committed war crimes in Sudan, and that the RSF and allied militias had carried out crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in West Darfur.
In making the genocide declaration on Tuesday, Blinken cited the RSF’s systematic murder of men and boys, including infants, on an ethnic basis and its targeting of women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and sexual violence.
“Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies,” Blinken said in a statement, adding that Dagalo has “wantonly ignored commitments under international humanitarian law.”
The RSF emerged in 2013 from the notorious Janjaweed militia used by longtime Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir to suppress an anti-government rebellion in Darfur, which then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell declared a genocide in 2004.
The RSF currently controls most of the Darfur region, with the exception of el-Fasher, the capital city of the state of North Darfur, where the fighting has escalated in the past year.
This developing story has been updated since initial publication.
