An investigation by CNN, based on testimonies and satellite images, revealed that Port Sudan forces, with the knowledge of their commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, carried out ethnic war crimes in Gezira State between January and May of last year.
A UN official, after reviewing the details of the investigation, considered it to be “genocide on ethnic grounds,” while it was noteworthy that these violations committed by the Port Sudan forces and the militias allied with them “remained largely secret,” according to CNN.
The American network completed the investigation in cooperation with the investigative newsroom Light House Reports, which relied on satellite images, survivor testimonies, and field analyses that revealed “horrific” violations and “described war crimes” committed by Port Sudan forces.
The investigation detailed the violations, stating that Port Sudan forces and allied militias used “unprecedented” brutal methods, including mass killings and field executions, based on testimonies from survivors who spoke of arbitrary executions of civilians suspected of sympathizing with the Rapid Support Forces, especially from non-Arab tribes in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.
The investigation also relayed testimonies of sexual violence and “systematic rape” used as a weapon of war, with a focus on women and girls in the targeted villages, in addition to a policy of “ethnic cleansing,” as it revealed the burning of entire villages and the destruction of vital infrastructure such as markets and hospitals, with the aim of forcing the population to flee.
One of the policies of collective punishment in Al-Jazirah State specifically was the indiscriminate bombing, including air raids on densely populated civilian areas, which resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties, including children and women.
CNN indicated that these violations were carried out under the direction of the highest level of the Port Sudan forces command, revealing that an official in the General Intelligence Service was responsible for coordinating the attacks in Al-Jazirah State, and that the commander of the forces, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, “was aware of the killings.”
“The Scene of the Massacre”
The investigation identified the time of the horrific violations in Al-Jazirah State during last January, as Port Sudan forces attempted to recapture the strategic city of “Wad Madani” from the Rapid Support Forces, noting that “the atrocities were escalating” as Burhan’s forces approached the city.
In the village of Al-Kuraiba, videos showed dozens of young men being detained by Port Sudan forces and brutally assaulted, accused of belonging to the Rapid Support Forces. The investigation also pointed to a massacre committed near what is known as the “Police Bridge,” where footage showed about 50 bodies in a “massacre scene,” according to CNN.
The American network quoted what it described as an “informant” from within the upper ranks of the General Intelligence Service in Port Sudan, who spoke without revealing his name “for fear of reprisals,” indicating that the victims killed at the police bridge “were buried in mass graves.”
It is noteworthy that the “intelligence” source acknowledged that the dead were not only from the Rapid Support Forces, but that there were civilians who were executed “based on suspicions,” while satellite images of the area days after the massacre confirmed the appearance of white objects that are believed to be bodies wrapped in a mass grave.
But mass graves were not the only method used by Port Sudan’s forces and militias to dispose of bodies, according to a CNN investigation, which quoted a second intelligence “informant” as saying that some civilians accused of collaborating with the Rapid Support Forces were shot and then thrown into a water canal.
“Al-Burhan is above the corpses.”
Just four miles from the village of “Bika,” the informant reported that bodies had been thrown into the water, while days later, Al-Burhan was addressing his soldiers from behind the same canal into which the bodies had been thrown, according to the intelligence source.
Satellite images taken last May, after the water level had receded, show what appear to be dozens of bodies at the bottom of the canal, meters away from where Burhan had been standing.
According to CNN, the horrific attacks carried out by Port Sudan forces along the road to Wad Madani were not “isolated” but were “part of a wider campaign of ethnically motivated attacks” that targeted at least 39 villages in Al-Jazirah State.
The abuses were concentrated against the “Kanabi,” a non-Arab farming community often referred to by militias as “Black Sudanese,” with one member of a UN fact-finding mission describing the military campaign as “targeted genocide on ethnic grounds.”
CNN’s investigation concludes that impunity is the main reason these violations continue, as Port Sudan forces have failed to seriously investigate the crimes of their own forces and allied militias.
