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Reporter's note

Satellites reveal scorched earth where fires have destroyed homes in Darfur. They also show the locations of mass graves. Videos from the region’s villages show groups of men being rounded up and beaten by militiamen, who often film their own abuses.

Darfuris say a genocide is taking place in Darfur, similar to the one they experienced in the early 2000s at the hands of the Sudanese state and Janjaweed militias, whose formalised version, the Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries (RSF), are now accused of using even heavier weaponry to the same end.

There is no lack of evidence of the massacres taking place in Darfur. Survivors in refugee camps in Chad described escaping “a scene from hell”.

The 500,000 Sudanese refugees who have fled to Chad since fighting began in April have to survive in makeshift camps in the desert, where aid agencies lack the money to dig wells for clean water or build toilets.

While the RSF expand their control over Darfur, bringing yet more accusations of abuses, the paramilitary force’s leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, has been able to play the statesman, visiting half a dozen African countries, meeting their presidents and even visiting the genocide memorial in Rwanda.

Dagolo, better known as Hemedti, is himself accused of genocide in Darfur during the 2000s as a Janjaweed commander, but inaction on Darfur means he has been able to switch his military uniform for a suit and tie as he poses with the likes of the Kenyan president, William Ruto, and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.

The focus has often been on the battle for Khartoum, and conflicts further abroad, but in Darfur, where militiamen describe Indigenous people as “slaves”, there is a desperate need to end the genocide taking place under the eyes of the world.

Kaamil Ahmed
Reporter, Global Development

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