General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan told Al Jazeera that many countries remain silent about the RSF’s alleged crimes in Sudan’s civil war.
The head of the Sudanese army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said that “many countries remain silent and turn a blind eye” to the crimes allegedly committed by the Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the country’s civil war that has lasted more than a year. year.
Sudan has been ravaged by war since April 2023, when fighting broke out between forces loyal to al-Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Since the start of the war, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions more have been displaced as the humanitarian crisis has deepened.
Both sides have been accused of possibly committing war crimes by UN officials and human rights groups.
In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera in Port Sudan, al-Burhan said: “Many countries remain silent and turn a blind eye to the crimes committed every day.”
“Every day, enemies kill the Sudanese people, plunder their lands and rape their wives and daughters… Everyone who remains silent and those who support what the other side does every day is definitely an enemy,” said al- Burhan, without naming. Any country.
“Perhaps some countries used their influence to impede aid provided to the Sudanese state. Some countries may have used their international and regional mechanisms to stop supporting the armed forces,” he added.
In March, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said his team had documented dozens of cases of sexual violence.
“Sexual violence as a weapon of war, including rape, has been a defining – and despicable – feature of this crisis from the beginning,” he said.
His team has documented 60 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence, involving at least 120 victims across the country, the vast majority of them women and girls, he said, but added that “these numbers are, unfortunately, a huge underrepresentation of the reality ”.
“RSF uniformed men and RSF-affiliated armed men were found responsible for 81 percent of documented incidents,” Turk said.
Paramilitary gains
In recent months, the RSF has made several advances and is approaching Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, where the army, government and United Nations agencies are currently based.
When asked about the RSF’s military gains, al-Burhan stated that “losses in battle or retreat in a certain situation does not mean losing the battle itself, and does not mean defeat”, adding that “the Sudanese people and the Sudanese armed forces will never be defeated.”
In late June, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) stated that the war has left around 755,000 Sudanese facing “catastrophe”, the most severe level of extreme hunger, while 8.5 million people face food shortages. which can result in acute malnutrition and death.
The United Nations famine monitoring system recently warned of a realistic possibility of famine in several areas of Sudan, including parts of Darfur, Khartoum, Kordofan and Gezira states.
When asked about the humanitarian situation, al-Burhan told Al Jazeera: “When we talk about famine, we must talk about its causes and those responsible for it.”
“Sudan has vast areas of arable land and Sudan has a large number of farmers who know how to work these lands; most of the arable land was cultivated, except the lands where Janjaweed terrorist groups threatened citizens and prevented them from cultivating,” he said.
The RSF was born from the Popular Defense Forces militias, commonly known as Janjaweed, mobilized by the former president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, against non-Arab tribes in Darfur.
“In Sudan, we have shortages in some areas that are under the control of these rebels, but in the rest of the country there are no shortages, except in the areas where people have been displaced,” he said.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
