Non-Arab Masalits Massacred in Darfur: Sudan Crisis
Kanako Mita and Sawako Utsumi
Modern Tokyo Times
Arabs in Sudan before this nation split up between Sudan and South Sudan were known to enslave the Dinka and other black African ethnic groups. In Sudan, the situation for non-Arab Masalits was equally grim concerning endless massacres by Arab militias in Darfur.
Since the fresh crisis in Sudan began between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (head of the Sudanese armed forces) and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti – the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces), new convulsions are emerging in various parts of the country.
Henceforth, with Darfur, South Kordofan, and other parts of the country being fragile before ongoing clashes between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), it was only a matter of time before Arab militias and the RSF would turn against non-Arabs in Darfur.
The BBC reports, “Since the capture of El Geneina, the RSF and allied Arab militias have been accused of murdering ethnic Masalit people, looting homes and raping women.”
Andrew Mitchell (the UK Minister for Africa) – concerning events in West Darfur – said, “What is happening in Darfur is that innocent people are being attacked by militias, particularly by the RSF. They are being hounded from their homes and murdered, women are being raped and attacked, houses are being burnt, crops and cattle destroyed.”
He continued, “This has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing. And it’s going on just as it was back from 2003 onwards. It’s going on in the same way today, if anything with even more ferocity.”
Reuters reports (earlier massacre this year), “The burials in Al Ghabat cemetery continued for more than seven weeks, from late April until mid-June, turning the rectangular plot into a sprawling mass grave for at least 1,000 residents of the Sudanese city of El Geneina in West Darfur. The carnage, according to dozens of eyewitness accounts, was the result of more than 50 days of attacks on the city’s majority ethnic African tribe by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force drawn largely from Arab groups, and allied Arab militias known as Janjaweed.”
Hobeldin Hassen (a Masalit activist in Chad after fleeing El Geneina) told Reuters, “…ethnic cleansing, occupying land and demographic change” by Arab militias and the RSF is a two-decade campaign to alter the ethnic demographics of the region.
He continued by saying they “are mobilized and indoctrinated to annihilate the original inhabitants of Darfur.”
Lee Jay Walker says, “It is often forgotten that Arabs in the land of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia only stopped slavery in the 1960s. Accordingly, with ISIS enslaving Yazidis in modern times in Iraq, it wasn’t surprising that Arabs also continued to enslave in Sudan during the war against the mainly African Animists and Christians in the south – which led to the creation of South Sudan. Therefore, even black African Muslims in Sudan can’t escape the bloodletting and the slavery legacy of Arabs in Sudan that is continuing today in Darfur.”
UN News reports, “The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) expressed alarm on Friday over reports that in Sudan, women and girls are being abducted, chained and held in “inhuman, degrading slave-like conditions” in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Darfur.”
UN experts said, “It is alleged that men identified as members of the RSF are using rape and sexual violence of women and girls as tools to punish and terrorize communities. Some of the reported rapes appear to be ethnically and racially motivated.”
The early crisis in Sudan was heavily focused on Khartoum. Yet, as expected, the ongoing economic, political, military, and ethnic convulsions are now being felt throughout various parts of the country – with the crisis in Darfur taking on a familiar pattern of ethnic massacres.
Despite the dire situation in Sudan and other nations, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Myanmar, the international media is overtly fixated on two conflicts (Ukraine and Gaza) – to the detriment of other conflicts where people need economic and humanitarian assistance.
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