The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has urged the international community to adopt a unified stance against the militia and to compel it to cease all military operations unconditionally, withdraw from all villages, towns, and civilian properties, and not to be rewarded for its terrorist crimes and egregious violations of international humanitarian law and the principle of preventing impunity.
According to the Sudanese news agency SUNA, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has once again drawn the international community’s attention to the serious violations of international humanitarian law and the terrorist practices carried out by the Janjaweed militia in the Gezira state. Horrifying details about ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities in West Darfur state last month have emerged, while the militia continues the systematic destruction of the country’s infrastructure.
The militia is currently imposing an unjust siege on several villages and towns in the Gezira state, aiming to force the youth into recruitment or to invade these villages, exposing their inhabitants to various forms of violations, humiliation, looting of their properties, and killing anyone who resists. Targeting rural areas devoid of military presence, committing atrocities against their inhabitants, especially women and girls, and forcibly recruiting youth and children are tactics known to terrorist groups in the region like Boko Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army, and ISIS. The militia still detains dozens of girls in conditions resembling slavery and imprisons thousands of civilians in camps lacking basic life necessities. Recently, horrifying details of ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities in West Darfur state have come to light.
The Ministry further stated that the militia continues the systematic destruction of the state’s infrastructure and the Sudanese economy. After destroying what remained of the Qarri oil refinery the week before last, the militia sabotaged the Junaid and West Sennar sugar factories, looted all movable vehicles and machinery, fertilizers, and destroyed planted areas, extending to looting all drilling and harvesting equipment in the Gezira project, aiming for the complete disruption of productive operations in the project and in the entire state. All these practices necessitate that the international community take a unified position against the militia, compelling it to unconditionally cease fire and all military operations, vacate cities and villages, and civilian properties, ensuring that the militia is not rewarded for its terrorist crimes and egregious violations of international humanitarian law, and adhering to the principle of preventing impunity.
