Fears of second genocide grow
The threat of genocide has returned to Darfur, the western region of Sudan that two decades ago bore witness to the killing of at least 300,000 people from non-Arab communities during an ethnic cleansing by Janjawid paramilitary forces.
“Anyone with darker skin is their target,” said Morsal Yagob, 40, a trader from El Fasher, the besieged city in Darfur, and the last not under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Janjawid reincarnation.
His Zaghawa community were among the ethnic African groups killed or deliberately starved to death. Yagob doubts he will survive a second genocide of his people.
The United Nations warned of dire consequences if the RSF tried to break the
Sudanese military’s hold on El Fasher, a year into a battle for power between the country’s leading generals.
“History is repeating itself in Darfur in the worst possible way,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said of the genocide that began in 2003.
She predicted “a large-scale massacre” in any battle for El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, where half a million people are now cut off from help, with dwindlingsupplies.
Nathaniel Raymond, a regional analyst said: “At this point, civilians and the SAF [the Sudanese Armed Forces] do not have a clear escape route.”
Most of those cowering in El Fasher, including Yagob’s family, had been hounded from their villages. Witnesses reported a revival of Janjawid-style terror tactics including “slave hunts” in which girls and women have been rounded up.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 civilians were killed during an attack on the city of El Geneina, in west Darfur, last October, according to UN investigators. Most of the victims were from ethnic African groups.
When the RSF followed them to El Fasher, Yagob had no funds to move his wife and five children again. Safety will come only if the SAF, under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, can keep the RSF at bay. “Even if we survive here, there is little chance we will ever be safe to go home,” Yagob said.
Nine million people have been displaced since fighting erupted in Sudan in April last year. Some estimations put the death toll as high as 150,000. Aid agencies warn of a looming famine.