El-Fasher massacre: Sudan seeks designation of RSF as terrorist group

The Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the Republic of Sudan in Nigeria, Ambassador Ahmed Omer Ahmed Taboul, has called on the international community to designate the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as a terrorist organisation. He made the call while addressing a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, five days after the paramilitary group […]

The Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the Republic of Sudan in Nigeria, Ambassador Ahmed Omer Ahmed Taboul, has called on the international community to designate the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as a terrorist organisation.

He made the call while addressing a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, five days after the paramilitary group seized El-Fasher, where it has been accused of killing over 3000 civilians already.

More than 36,000 civilians have fled the city since Sunday, when the RSF captured the army’s last stronghold in the Darfur region, triggering warnings from the UN and humanitarian groups of possible mass killings and ethnic cleansing.

Survivors told AFP that families hid in trenches, bodies lay in the streets, and children were killed in front of their parents after the RSF advanced into the western city.

Some have sought refuge in Tawila, a town around 70 kilometres (43 miles) to the west that is already sheltering some 650,000 displaced people.

In satellite phone interviews with AFP, three survivors who reached Tawila described scenes of terror and loss during their escape from a city besieged by the RSF for 18 months, cut off from food, medicine and other aid.

Their accounts echoed those of survivors of the mass killings in Darfur in the early 2000s, when Janjaweed militias — the forces accused of genocide there, which later became the RSF — burned villages, killed some 300,000 people and displaced 2.7 million more.

Speaking during the press briefing, Ambassador Taboul reiterated the call for the international community to tag the RSF a terrorist organisation, saying if that had been done earlier, the killings could have been stopped.

He explained that the group’s activities ticked all the boxes of a terrorist body, saying it has killed thousands of Sudanese while public infrastructure worth trillions has been destroyed by the group.

He lamented that the international community has been watching while the militia group are massacring innocent civilians, calling on Nigeria and other friendly African countries to back the Sudanese government.

“The second thing that is happening in Sudan has to do with the silence of the international community. The whole international community is watching what is happening, but there is only a matter of condemnation; there is no real action,” he lamented.

Ambassador Taboul vowed that the government will continue defending the people, adding that “The role of the government is to restore peace to the people of Sudan, and we are going on this. We will not stop until we destroy the militia.“