Office of the Spokesperson and Media Directorate

Republic of Sudan
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Office of the Spokesperson and Media Directorate

Press Statement

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to once again draw the attention of the international community to the serious violations of International Humanitarian Law and the terrorist practices perpetrated by the Janjaweed Militia in Al-Gazira State, along with the emergence of horrific details of crimes of ethnic cleansing and massacres in West Darfur State last month, while the Militia continues to systematically destroy the country's infrastructure.

The Militia is currently imposing a cruel siege on a number of villages and small towns in the State of Al-Gazira. Two options are offered by the Militia to villagers; either young people of these villages be conscripted into its ranks, or invading the villages, exposing their residents to various types
of violations and humiliation, plundering their belongings and killing everyone who resists that.

Targeting villages and rural areas devoid of any military presence, and the accompanying atrocities against their populations, especially women and girls, as well as compulsory conscription of youth and children, are the modus operandi of terrorist groups known to the region, such as Boko Haram, the LRA, and ISIS. Moreover, the Militia still detains dozens of girls subjecting them to sexual slavery, while imprisoning thousands of civilians as hostages in camps that lack the most basic necessities of life.

Meanwhile, horrifying details have emerged, over the past few days, about ethnic cleansing and massacres in West Darfur State. The testimonies of the victims, reported by the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Prevent Genocide, and one of the leading international news agencies, described a pattern of ethnic killings of all males, including those as young as infants, from the targeted tribes, with women and girls were enslaved; bodies of the dead were mutilated , and camps for internally displaced people fleeing the scourge of war, in and around the city of El Geneina, were mercilessly assaulted.

The Militia in the meantime continues its premeditated and systematic destruction of the infrastructure of the Sudanese state and economy. After setting a blaze what remained of the Qari Oil Refinery, earlier this month. the Militia vandalized the Al-Junaid and West Sennar sugar factories, looted all cars, mobile machinery, fertilizers, and destroyed the cultivated areas, further to its pillaging of all ploughs and harvesting machinery in the Al-Gazira Scheme , with the aim of completely disrupting production operations in the Scheme and in the State as a whole.

The above-described crimes require the international community to take a unified stance against the Militia to compel it implement an unconditional ceasefire and to stop all military operations, beside the evacuation of towns, villages and civilian objects. It is also imperative that the Militia not be rewarded for its terrorist crimes and horrific violations of International Humanitarian Law, and to strictly adhere to the principle of preventing impunity.