A serious-looking Sudanese warlord, accused of genocide by survivors of the Darfur massacres, stood before hundreds of victims of the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. This scene may sound surreal. Yet it happened on January 6 in Kigali, at the Genocide Memorial. General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo (alias "Hemedti"), at war with the regular Sudanese army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, was invited to Rwanda as part of his first regional tour since the start of the conflict on April 15, 2023.
"We, as Sudanese, must learn from Rwanda. The war that our country is witnessing today must be the last war, and we must work to create a just," he wrote in English on the social media network X (formerly Twitter) following his visit. Elusive since the start of the conflict, addressing his fighters by voice mail or video from the basement of unlocatable bunkers, Hemedti has survived, despite rumors of his death.
In recent weeks, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been received with the honors befitting a head of state in Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda. A diplomatic coup for the man trying to impose himself in power in Sudan while his paramilitary forces have been gaining ground on the regular army, conquering the town of Wad Madani in December.
But while some African leaders are rolling out the red carpet for him, his troops, descended from the Janjaweed militias who sowed terror in Darfur from 2003 onwards, are accused of multiple war crimes and atrocities against civilian populations in the territories they control. According to a report by a UN panel of experts submitted to the Security Council on January 15, which Le Monde has seen, the RSF, supported by local militias, are the main perpetrators of the massacres committed in West Darfur, in particular in El Geneina between June and November.
According to the United Nations, between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in this city alone. These figures, which exceed the 13,000 nationwide deaths estimated by the NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), have been corroborated by numerous testimonies from victims, human rights activists, lawyers and eyewitnesses contacted by Le Monde in the Sudanese refugee camps in Chad.
The attacks "were planned, coordinated, and executed by the RSF and their allied Arab militias," and which deliberately targeted IDP camps, schools, mosques and hospitals, could constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, according to the report.
"These systematic atrocities were aimed primarily at the Masalit community [the region's majority non-Arab ethnic group], first targeting political and traditional elites, then lawyers, human rights activists, teachers and finally civilians indiscriminately, including many women who were raped. What happened was genocide," said Ibrahim Shamo, a member of a human rights organization.
The UN experts also report dozens of abductions and rapes of women, including minors, by the RSF and their allies, while stressing that the figure could be much higher. On the exile route to Chad, which is dotted with checkpoints, "women and men were separated, harassed, searched, robbed, and physically assaulted," the document continues. "RSF and allied militias indiscriminately shot hundreds of people in the legs to prevent them from fleeing. Young men were particularly targeted and interrogated about their ethnicity. If identified as Masalit, many were summarily executed with a shot to the head."
After a spike in violence in June, the RSF undertook a major operation to conceal their crimes. Thousands of corpses were collected, loaded onto the backs of trucks and dumped in mass graves around El Geneina. The UN mission in Sudan estimated in June that it had received credible information on the existence of at least 13 mass graves.
Several local and international NGOs sounded the alarm. "But we've had a hard time being heard, because the war in Sudan has gone under the radar. International attention is elsewhere," noted Shamo. "Yet we have collected thousands of testimonies, countless photos and evidence incriminating the RSF." A refugee in Chad, the human rights activist pointed out that the death toll remains uncertain, with more than 2,700 people still missing.
In early November, the RSF launched an offensive on the army's last stronghold in West Darfur, near El Geneina. When the 15th infantry division moved into the northern Ardamata district, where many Masalit and other displaced people from non-Arab communities had taken refuge, the paramilitary assault resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Masalit civilians, some on suspicion of belonging to a vigilante group.
Since June, some 550,000 people have fled Darfur to find refuge in makeshift camps in Chad. More than nine months after the start of the confrontation between the two rival generals, more than 7 million Sudanese people have been displaced, including almost 1.5 million to neighboring countries.
The UN report did not spare General al-Burhan's Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for their responsibility for the current outbreak of violence and the ensuing humanitarian catastrophe. In addition to the arbitrary arrests of hundreds of civilians suspected of links with the enemy, the regular army has been committing multiple acts of violence against the population, particularly from the air. Routed in Darfur and cornered in Khartoum, the SAF have stepped up air raids on residential areas, killing hundreds of civilians.
In addition, the command structure, riddled with Islamist leaders nostalgic for the deposed regime of Omar al-Bashir, has been carrying out a massive civilian recruitment campaign in the areas under its control. Dubbed the Popular Resistance, these groups, most often formed along ethnic lines, are raising fears of worsening inter-community violence.
"The RSF are responsible for war crimes, but it's important to remember that the game of ethnic division is being played on both sides," explained Clément Deshayes, a researcher at the French National Research Institute for Development. "In the long term, this game is extremely dangerous. While we are not yet facing a full-blown civil war, we are witnessing a radicalization of society and an increase in armed groups. The war could enter a less clear phase, fragmented into local clashes."
The RSF have managed to rally thousands of fighters thanks to their considerable financial resources, but also by relying on a discourse praising the fighter image and the supremacy of the region's nomadic Arabs. "Hemedti has united all the Arab clans of Darfur under a single banner," said a Chadian official living near the border. "His forces even recruit from Chad and Niger. But it will be difficult for him to rule Sudan. He doesn't have the support of the rest of the population, who are fed up with his scorched earth policy."
The UN report also sheds light on the RSF's external support and supply lines. Confirming information previously published by Le Monde, the experts highlighted the decisive support provided to the paramilitaries by the United Arab Emirates. The report established several deliveries of fuel and weapons from South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Libya, but above all Chad, that were orchestrated by the UAE, which have established themselves as a central partner of Chadian president Mahamat Idriss Déby's regime.
These revelations have been firmly denied by Abu Dhabi. Sudan, a country rich in resources and a strategic crossroads between the Sahel and the Red Sea, is nevertheless at the heart of a competition that extends beyond its borders, as evidenced by the delivery of Iranian Mohajer-6 drones to the regular army, according to information in Le Monde.
Hemedti's African tour is angering the regular army. The government in Port Sudan, in the east of the country, recalled its ambassador to Kenya after Hemedti's visit and suspended its participation in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which was due to organize a meeting between the two rival generals in January.
During the regional organization's extraordinary summit, held on January 18 in Entebbe, Uganda, only Hemedti was present. On the sidelines of the meeting, he affirmed his readiness for a ceasefire, meeting with the European Union's envoy for the Horn of Africa. The warlord also pulled off a political coup by signing an agreement with the main civilian opposition force in exile, led by former prime minister Abdallah Hamdok. But while Hemedti is advancing on the political and diplomatic fronts, both camps continue to favor the military option to defeat their enemy and win power.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.