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Key Sudanese city could fall to rebels imminently - US (and warns RSF thinks it could set up a breakaway state)
US envoy Tom Perriello told the BBC that some in the RSF think capturing El-Fasher will help them establish Darfur as a breakaway state.
Mr Perriello said the US would not recognise an independent Darfur "under any circumstances".
"I think if there's anyone in RSF territory who thinks taking el-Fasher means somehow they will have a right to the state of Darfur, they need to disillusion themselves of that myth," he said. "It does not mean that.
...
"We see upwards of a million innocent people being starved by the siege of the RSF," he said. "Bombings have killed people inside of hospitals.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cevvz25n292o
Mr Perriello said the US would not recognise an independent Darfur "under any circumstances".
"I think if there's anyone in RSF territory who thinks taking el-Fasher means somehow they will have a right to the state of Darfur, they need to disillusion themselves of that myth," he said. "It does not mean that.
...
"We see upwards of a million innocent people being starved by the siege of the RSF," he said. "Bombings have killed people inside of hospitals.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cevvz25n292o
The RSF are accused of genocide in Darfur, against non-Arab groups. If they had complete control, it'd be a massacre.
(Nairobi, May 9, 2024) – Attacks by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias in El Geneina, the capital city of Sudan’s West Darfur state, from April to November 2023, killed at least thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands as refugees, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The crimes against humanity and widespread war crimes were committed in the context of an ethnic cleansing campaign against the ethnic Massalit and other non-Arab populations in and around El Geneina.
The 218-page report, “‘The Massalit Will Not Come Home’: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan,” documents that the Rapid Support Forces, an independent military force in armed conflict with the Sudan military, and their allied mainly Arab militias, including the Third-Front Tamazuj, an armed group, targeted the predominantly Massalit neighborhoods of El Geneina in relentless waves of attacks from April to June. Abuses escalated again in early November. The attackers committed other serious abuses such as torture, rape, and looting. More than half a million refugees from West Darfur have fled to Chad since April 2023. As of late October 2023, 75 percent were from El Geneina.
“As the UN Security Council and governments wake up to the looming disaster in El Fasher, the large-scale atrocities committed in El Geneina should be seen as a reminder of the atrocities that could come in the absence of concerted action,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “Governments, the African Union, and the United Nations need to act now to protect civilians.”
Targeting the Massalit people and other non-Arab communities by committing serious violations against them with the apparent objective of at least having them permanently leave the region constitutes ethnic cleansing. The particular context in which the widespread killings took place also raises the possibility that the RSF and their allies have the intent to destroy in whole or in part the Massalit in at least West Darfur, which would indicate that genocide has been and/or is being committed there.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/09/sudan-ethnic-cleansing-west-darfur
The 218-page report, “‘The Massalit Will Not Come Home’: Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan,” documents that the Rapid Support Forces, an independent military force in armed conflict with the Sudan military, and their allied mainly Arab militias, including the Third-Front Tamazuj, an armed group, targeted the predominantly Massalit neighborhoods of El Geneina in relentless waves of attacks from April to June. Abuses escalated again in early November. The attackers committed other serious abuses such as torture, rape, and looting. More than half a million refugees from West Darfur have fled to Chad since April 2023. As of late October 2023, 75 percent were from El Geneina.
“As the UN Security Council and governments wake up to the looming disaster in El Fasher, the large-scale atrocities committed in El Geneina should be seen as a reminder of the atrocities that could come in the absence of concerted action,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “Governments, the African Union, and the United Nations need to act now to protect civilians.”
Targeting the Massalit people and other non-Arab communities by committing serious violations against them with the apparent objective of at least having them permanently leave the region constitutes ethnic cleansing. The particular context in which the widespread killings took place also raises the possibility that the RSF and their allies have the intent to destroy in whole or in part the Massalit in at least West Darfur, which would indicate that genocide has been and/or is being committed there.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/09/sudan-ethnic-cleansing-west-darfur
I think this is at the point where the Responsibility To Protect should be invoked, even though that means other states fighting in Sudan, to kill some of the RSF and force them to stop.