The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has appealed to witnesses to send evidence to aid an urgent investigation opened by his office into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Sudan has been mired in war since April last year when a rivalry between the leaders of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into violence.
Four weeks of fighting in and around el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, has killed more than 190 people and wounded 1,200, according to medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF.
Home to more than 1.8 million residents and displaced people, El-Fasher is the only state capital in the vast Darfur region not under RSF control and a key humanitarian hub for a region on the brink of famine.
People in the city have called El-Fasher “hell on Earth, where they could lose their lives any day”, Toby Harward, the UN deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, told one of the News Agency.
The ICC has long been investigating atrocities in Sudan, dating back to a previous devastating conflict in Darfur.
The Hague-based court can prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and in some cases, the crime of aggression if committed on the territory of one of the court’s 124 member states or by nationals of ICC members.
It can also have jurisdiction through a referral by the United Nations Security Council, as happened with Darfur in 2005.
Sudan’s conflict began in April last year when soaring tensions between the leaders of the military and the RSF erupted into fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.
The war has killed more than 14,000 people and wounded thousands more while pushing its population to the brink of famine. The U.N. food agency warned the warring parties last month that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the region.
The war also created the world’s largest displacement crisis as more than 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes, including over 2 million people who crossed into neighbouring countries, the U.N. migration agency told The Associated Press Monday.
The ICC has long been investigating atrocities in Sudan, dating back to a previous devastating conflict in Darfur. The court has issued arrest warrants for former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges including genocide allegedly committed in Darfur between 2003-2008.
The RSF was born out of Arab militias, commonly known as Janjaweed, mobilized by al-Bashir against non-Arab tribes in Darfur. At the time, they were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities, and Darfur became synonymous with genocide.
