SUDAN: US announces sanctions against RSF leader

The United States determined on Tuesday that members of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had “committed genocide” and imposed sanctions on the paramilitary group’s leader.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the determination was based on information about the RSF’s “systematic” murder of men and boys and the targeted rape of women and girls from certain ethnic groups.

“The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible,” Blinken said, announcing sanctions against RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemedti, for his “role in systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people.”

Daglo had been designated “for his involvement in gross violations of human rights in Darfur, namely the mass rape of civilians by RSF soldiers under his control,” and he and his family members are now ineligible for entry to the United States, he said.

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The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted after World War II, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”