The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) has announced that he is seeking arrest warrants for individuals accused of committing atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the United States and other nations have determined that a paramilitary group and its allies have engaged in genocide.
Speaking before the UN Security Council in New York, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan warned: “Criminality is accelerating in Darfur. Civilians are being targeted, women and girls are subjected to sexual violence, and entire communities are left in destruction.
“This is not just an assessment; it is a hard-edged analysis based on verified evidence.” Khan stated that ICC lawyers had made significant progress in the case by interviewing witnesses who had fled Sudan.
The country descended into conflict in mid-April 2023 when longstanding tensions between Sudan’s military and paramilitary leaders erupted in the capital, Khartoum, before spreading to other regions, including the vast western Darfur region.
Two decades earlier, Darfur became synonymous with genocide and war crimes, particularly at the hands of the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias, which targeted populations identifying as Central or East African. The violence resulted in up to 300,000 deaths and displaced 2.7 million people.
Khan emphasized that the current situation closely mirrors past atrocities. “The pattern of crimes, the perpetrators, the parties—these all track very closely with the same protagonists and the same targeted groups as in 2003,” he said.
“It’s the same communities, the same groups suffering—a new generation enduring the same hell that previous generations of Darfuris have faced. And this is tragic.”
However, Khan did not disclose specific details about the crimes or the identities of those for whom the ICC is seeking arrest warrants.
Back in January, Khan informed the council that there were credible reasons to believe both Sudanese government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—which emerged from the Janjaweed—may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide in Darfur.
Witnesses and human rights organizations have reported that the RSF engaged in ethnically targeted attacks against the Masalit and other non-Arab groups in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, in 2023.
Highlighting the ICC’s potential impact on the crisis, Khan referenced the recent trial of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, accused of committing 31 war crimes between 2003 and 2004 as the leader of the Janjaweed militia.
Abd-al-Rahman voluntarily surrendered in June 2020, and his trial in The Hague concluded last December, pending sentencing.
Meanwhile, arrest warrants remain outstanding for Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s former president until 2019, as well as Abdel Hussein, Bashir’s former representative in Darfur, and Abdel Harun, the country’s former interior minister.
Sudan Conflict
Khan’s remarks came as UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the attack on the Saudi Teaching Hospital in El Fasher, North Darfur, on January 24.
The facility, the only operational hospital in Darfur’s largest city, was struck—possibly by a drone attack—resulting in the deaths of at least 70 patients and their relatives, with dozens more injured.
The Trump administration may take a more aggressive stance on Sudan, one of the five signatories of the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreement with Israel that Donald Trump still considers a key diplomatic achievement.
Newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has confirmed that he views recent events in Darfur as genocide—a designation the Biden administration also applied in its final days.
Rubio has also publicly accused the United Arab Emirates of funding the RSF, though the UAE denies these allegations.
Last month, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Capital Tap Holding LLC, a UAE-based firm overseeing 50 companies across 10 countries. Sanctions were also placed on Creative Python, another UAE firm identified as a procurement arm of the RSF.
Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently traveled to the Sudan-Chad border to assess the humanitarian crisis. He plans to convene a foreign ministers’ meeting on Sudan in the coming months.
However, due to UK policy, Lammy cannot officially classify the violence as genocide, as such determinations are reserved for the courts.
For some diplomats, events on the ground may overtake any diplomatic timetable. Throughout January, large numbers of RSF fighters have reportedly advanced toward encircling El Fasher, now positioned less than two miles (three kilometers) from the Zamzam camp for internally displaced persons, according to a report from the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, a recognized authority tracking the conflict.
Home to as many as 500,000 displaced people, the Zamzam camp faces a looming humanitarian catastrophe, with the World Food Programme struggling to prevent full-scale famine.
The Trump administration is being urged to appoint a special envoy for the Horn of Africa and reconsider its decision to freeze all U.S. aid to Sudan for six months pending a review.
Democratic senators, including Chris Murphy, have warned that this decision could result in malnourished infants dying within weeks.
The United States has been the largest donor of humanitarian aid to Sudan, providing over $1.4 billion in assistance since October 2022, including more than $980 million through USAID.
