[EXPLOSION] “The individuals are working away from the bombing. Persons are dying. We simply ship this to the nation to see what is occurring in Nuba Mountains.” [GUNSHOTS] “Yeah.” Sudan is within the grip of a brutal civil battle. Eleven million folks have been pushed from their houses, and tens of hundreds have been killed. As a paramilitary group known as the Speedy Help Forces — [CRIES] — battles the Sudanese Military for management of the nation. The U.N. has accused each side of abuses. However a six-month investigation by The New York Instances reveals that the R.S.F. is committing systemic atrocities throughout Sudan, together with ethnic cleaning – usually beneath the watch of its commanders. The opaque construction of the R.S.F. makes it onerous to determine the leaders accountable. However by analyzing dozens of slick propaganda movies, the place the commanders are introduced as benevolent actors, we mapped out for the primary time a command construction of no less than 20 key figures and the areas they function in. R.S.F. fighters beneath these commanders usually movie atrocities themselves, proof which will at some point maintain perpetrators to account. So The Instances teamed up with researchers at C.I.R.‘s Sudan Witness Venture to gather these movies because the R.S.F. moved throughout Sudan. We analyzed hearth alerts and pictures collected by satellites, too. We interviewed an R.S.F. commander on the entrance line. And we spoke to witnesses to the battle by partnering with Ayin Media, a community of reporters working anonymously in Sudan. Taken collectively, the proof traces a playbook of terror being waged by the R.S.F. in a number of states. And locates Commanders like these — at or very close to the websites of crimes. Sudan has been right here earlier than. Virtually twenty years in the past, a infamous militia known as the Janjaweed, that means devils on horseback, carried out a genocide in Darfur. Over 300,000 folks have been estimated to have been killed. A former Janjaweed commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or Hemeti, now leads the Speedy Help Forces, alongside along with his brother Abdul Rahim as his deputy. And their fighters are utilizing the techniques of Darfur from 20 years in the past, in at present’s civil battle. We documented three broad patterns of abuse — executing unarmed captives, intentionally torching communities and immediately abusing civilians, together with with sexual violence. R.S.F. fighters will be recognized by their uniform. They put on mild camouflage, usually with a Sudanese flag on one sleeve and a particular emblem on the opposite. They often recruit mercenaries and combat alongside loose-knit militias, who’re normally in plain garments. And plenty of have scarves often known as kadamols wrapped round their heads. We regularly hear them use the language of ethnic cleaning. Sudan’s military can also be accused of battle crimes, together with intentionally ravenous civilians, shelling hospitals and indiscriminate airstrikes. [WARPLANE FLYING] As many as 200 folks have been reportedly killed in airstrikes earlier this month in Darfur. However on this investigation — — we documented abuses by the R.S.F. on a a lot wider scale — — which will quantity to crimes towards humanity. One of many commanders we discovered on the web site of a number of atrocities is Hussein Barsham. He normally directs combating within the Kordofan area, and that’s the place we discover him in October 2023, when the R.S.F. seized Baleela Airport and a serious oil area close by. Barsham celebrates by the entrance of the terminal, however video filmed on the opposite facet reveals what their victory appears like — [RAPID GUNFIRE] — fighters executing a gaggle of captives. A warning — these movies are very graphic. So we’ve blurred some scenes. Because the particular person filming enters this parking zone, a gunman is firing right into a pile of our bodies on the bottom. [GUNSHOTS] R.S.F. fighters circle the victims and applaud the killing. Fourteen our bodies in whole. A lot of them are carrying the darkish fatigues typical of the Sudanese military, who have been defending the airport. They’re now unarmed, and to execute them could be a battle crime. Along with our evaluation, a health care provider with experience in conflict-related accidents advised us there are indicators that that’s precisely what occurred right here. The blood is contemporary. A number of of the our bodies are twitching, indicating they have been lately killed. The blood splatter matches the gunshot wounds, and a number of the physique positions counsel they have been killed right here, not moved after the combat. Barsham is close by, exhibiting off the jacket of a Sudanese soldier. A satellite tv for pc picture taken on Oct. 30 reveals the execution web site, confirming the boys have been killed on that day. Barsham was simply 100 yards away. He’s on the scene, commanding his forces across the time of the executions. Underneath the legal guidelines of battle, he might bear accountability if he ordered this crime or did nothing to stop it. Eight months later, we discovered Barsham with three extra R.S.F. commanders, Salih Al Futi, Al Taj Al Tijani and a area commander with the nom de guerre John Garang, when their fighters carried out one other execution. This time it was in El Fula, the capital of West Kordofan. On June 20, we see a big convoy of R.S.F. fighters rolling into the city. [CHEERING] They unfold out between streets of houses — — brag about males they’d killed — — and threaten others taken captive. A whole bunch of Sudanese troopers defending El Fula had fled south earlier that day, and the R.S.F. simply overruns the town. [GUNSHOTS] Barsham is there amongst them. Al Tijani, too, standing alongside Barsham. And close by, fighters swarm round Salih Al Futi as he walks. Throughout the assault, the R.S.F. rounds up 20 males and takes them simply outdoors the city. An unidentified fighter says that he acknowledges one of many males as a military officer. A number of of the boys are carrying navy fatigues however none of them are armed. Then, simply as they did at Baleela Airport, the R.S.F. opened hearth. [GUNSHOTS] The sphere commander, who goes by John Garang, is with them. Within the fray, they laud their senior commanders, Al Tijani and Al Futi. Al Tijani, Al Futi and Barsham usually are not within the movies of those executions. However by analyzing footage of them that day, we all know they have been lower than a mile away. And we all know they’re in El Fula across the identical time because the executions as a result of the shadows in each units of movies match. These commanders know one another. They’re repeatedly filmed collectively in West Kordofan. And within the eight months between the executions at Baleela and El Fula, they seem to have performed nothing to cease their fighters’ conduct. One of many battle’s most infamous episodes was the execution of the then governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abakar. In June 2023, he was captured by the R.S.F. hours after he publicly criticized the group. Video reveals him being pressured inside a constructing by a commander, Abdelrahman Joma Barakallah. This was the final time he was seen alive. Video filmed hours later confirmed his bloodied physique. Governor Abakar’s killing occurred throughout a marketing campaign of ethnic violence focusing on his tribe, the Masalit group in El Geneina, the identical group the Janjaweed terrorized a long time in the past. Mariam Mohammed Ismael is amongst half 1,000,000 Sudanese who fled the violence to Chad. The R.S.F. laid waste to El Geneina, burning down or destroying shut to 1 quarter of the town’s 300,000 buildings, simply because the Janjaweed did a long time in the past. They usually’ve used hearth as a technique of battle throughout the remainder of Darfur and past for nearly two years. In Kutum, in North Darfur, total communities have been destroyed since October. Satellite tv for pc photos present no pure hearth path between burned houses, and a number of villages are individually burned. These are telltale indicators of arson. A whole bunch of miles away in Al Takmah, we catch R.S.F. fighters within the act. They’re jubilant — — as houses and retailers burn. They destroyed half the city. At a navy base the R.S.F. seized in Sidrah, a commander oversees the burning. A fighter walks into view, holding a torch and burning down huts. The one he simply handed is now ablaze, and the group gloats as they burn. A area commander named Al Gouja is close by — — bragging as much more huts go up in flames. Al Gouja isn’t the one commander implicated in scorched earth techniques. We discovered 4 R.S.F. commanders directing assaults throughout a lethal monthlong assault in North Darfur: Al Nour Al Guba and Geddo Hamdan Abu Shouk, each high-ranking commanders, and Ali Rizkallah and Zeer Salim, each lower-ranking area commanders. For weeks, they oversaw a brutal marketing campaign to seize the state’s capital, El Fasher, from Sudan’s military and forces allied with them. The R.S.F. encircled the town in April. Dozens of outlying villages have been torched in assaults focusing on the Zaghawa ethnic group. The siege pressured a closely pregnant Ekhlas Adam Ali El Haj to flee her house village of Tawila. She reached the village close to Golo Dam. It’s right here, in Golo Dam, that we discover the primary of the North Darfur commanders, Ali Rizkallah, telling passersby to not go away, that they’re secure. The reservoir in Golo Dam was the principle water supply for the realm, serving greater than 200,000 folks. Rizkallah ordered it to be turned off. Ekhlas escaped once more, this time to a college in El Fasher. However the R.S.F. pushed into the town. That is the place we see one other three commanders on the entrance line — Zeer Salim, the lower-ranking commander, and Al Guba and Abu Shouk, the senior commanders. An R.S.F. area commander in El Fasher confirmed to us that the senior commanders are in cost. We’re going to focus right here on 48 hours on June 1 and a couple of, after we see these commanders collectively as a complete neighborhood is torched. Zeer Salim is usually filmed combating on the streets along with his forces. On June 1, he seems in one other video, not combating this time however giving the decision to prayer inside a mosque. We positioned the mosque to japanese El Fasher. The subsequent day, Zeer Salim is out on the street, simply two blocks from the mosque. [GUNSHOTS] That very same day, he’s along with his superior officers, Al Guba and Abu Shouk, 1,000 toes from the mosque as they rally their troops. Throughout this space, clusters of buildings have been burned down because the R.S.F. took management, and on June 1, much more buildings have been torched. The R.S.F. commander denied accountability and blamed the Sudanese Military bombing. There are some indicators of bombardment, however a lot of the destruction that we analyzed is according to the R.S.F. scorched-earth techniques. A mile away from the mosque, a neighborhood the dimensions of 10 metropolis blocks in Manhattan is ablaze that morning. A number of fires seem to have been ignited across the identical time, the place members of the Zaghawa ethnic group have been believed to be residing. That is proof of a focused ground-based assault, researchers from the Humanitarian Analysis Lab at Yale College say. By August, greater than 20,000 constructions have been broken or destroyed, many by hearth. The devastation is closely concentrated within the japanese a part of the town, the realm of R.S.F. advance. Arafa Ali Yagoub was residing on this space, and he or she recalled the R.S.F. terrorizing them earlier than they fled. Her husband was kidnapped. Arafa was displaced from her house by the Janjaweed when she was a toddler, and now by the R.S.F. The senior commanders on the bottom in El Fasher, Al Guba and Abu Shouk, have been each within the Janjaweed and have led R.S.F. forces in North Darfur for years. Abu Shouk is a relative of the R.S.F. chief Hemeti, and he has a historical past of ethnic violence with Zaghawa rivals, who his forces focused once more in El Fasher. The presence of those high-ranking commanders in El Fasher — — reveals the importance of this marketing campaign to the R.S.F., and it unwittingly hyperlinks them to those atrocities. Ekhlas, Arafa and lots of hundreds extra have been pressured to flee, this time again to Ekhlas’s house in Tawila. When Ekhlas reached her house, even that had been looted. The fear that Ekhlas and Arafa endured in El Fasher is being inflicted on strange civilians all through Sudan. Numerous movies present the R.S.F. whipping folks. Beating them, generally capturing them. [GUNSHOTS] And forcing them to make animal noises. In October, the R.S.F. repeatedly attacked civilians in Gezira State, after Abu Aqla Kaykal, an R.S.F. commander from that space — — defected to Sudan’s military. This triggered a wave of retaliation by the R.S.F. Throughout Kaykal’s house state. Villages in Gezira have been additionally attacked when Kaykal was within the R.S.F. However this time, they particularly focused the tribe he was from. A whole bunch have been killed in a matter of weeks. One of many cities invaded by the R.S.F. is Al Seriha. An R.S.F. commander main that marketing campaign is Al Gouja, who we noticed when huts have been torched earlier. Right here he’s, 300 yards from Al Seriha, capturing at it and directing R.S.F. fighters round him. As soon as inside, they spherical up males and maintain them. We don’t see what occurs subsequent. However the R.S.F. reportedly kills greater than 100 folks right here. Simultaneous assaults have been occurring in villages proper throughout the japanese Gezira area. In lots of locations, the R.S.F. spherical up the boys of the realm or power them to run away at gunpoint. [GUN COCKS] Witnesses we spoke to have been terrified. They stole Ammar El Awad Alam’s herd of goats. The R.S.F. emptied Al Seriha and lots of different villages. And the fighters gloated about their ethnic cleaning. The assaults triggered one other exodus. 150,000 folks left in two weeks. They’re amongst over eight million folks now displaced in Sudan, and hundreds of thousands extra who’ve fled to neighboring international locations. Proof we collected of the R.S.F. rampage in Gezira match a number of accounts of one other sort of abuse — sexual violence. Survivors have given testimony to consultants we interviewed, together with Hala Al Karib, head of SIHA, a girls’s advocacy group. Her staff additionally obtained testimonials of rape in a number of cities in Gezira, significantly across the space that Kaykal was from. Tambul, Rufaa and Azraq are among the many villages R.S.F. fighters bragged that they’d destroyed. Specialists we spoke to mentioned that separating males from their households, as we see in Gezira, is a key indicator of sexual violence. Witnesses not often talked immediately about sexual violence, however they feared for the ladies and women of their communities. Hanan Abbakar Al Tahir recalled R.S.F. fighters leering at her in her house in Gezira. In addition they killed a person for defending girls. As Al-Nazeer fled his house, the R.S.F. beat him when he objected to girls in his group being harassed. And later, he was shot. Human Rights Watch, the U.N. and different teams have documented sexual violence in no less than 5 states in Sudan for the reason that battle broke out. Many years on from the genocide in Darfur, only one particular person has been placed on trial on the Worldwide Prison Courtroom. This time, there could also be a stronger prospect for accountability. The movies that fighters understand as trophies of their exploits are regarded by the prosecutor of the I.C.C. as one thing else — proof. “So we are able to piece collectively the various kinds of proof units which can be out there now, from telephones, from video and audio recordings, which can be additionally proving to be extraordinarily vital to pierce the veil of impunity.” On this investigation, the footage allowed us to search out 10 commanders overseeing potential crimes and determine the areas of operation of many extra. Their chief, Common Dagalo, or Hemeti, might bear final accountability. Time and again, fighters pay fealty to him. And the sphere commander we spoke to mentioned that they take orders from the highest. In virtually two years of battle, Hemeti has didn’t cease them from finishing up abuses. However there are glimmers of hope. The survivors we spoke to recalled the kindness of strangers, fellow residents who supplied meals, shelter or safety as they fled. What they want now could be for the violence to finish.
