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US seeks truce in Sudan as ICC probes possible war crimes in El-Fasher
There have been reports of mass killings, sexual violence, looting and abductions in a city overrun by Rapid Support Forces militia
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The United States was working with both sides in Sudan’s war for a possible humanitarian truce, a US envoy said on Monday, while International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors said they were trying to preserve evidence from last week’s rampage through a besieged city in the Darfur region.
The latest alleged atrocities in famine-hit El-Fasher “are part of a broader pattern of violence that has afflicted the entire Darfur region” and “may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity”, the ICC statement said, noting that evidence could be used in future prosecutions.
The Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group fighting Sudanese troops, captured El-Fasher after besieging it for 18 months.
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Witnesses have reported RSF fighters going house to house, killing civilians and committing sexual assaults. According to the World Health Organization, gunmen killed at least 460 people at a hospital and abducted doctors and nurses.
Details have been slow to emerge as communications were poor. The death toll remained unclear.
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The fall of El-Fasher heralded a new phase of the brutal two-year war in Africa’s third-largest country.
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