[EXPLOSION] “The persons are working away from the bombing. Individuals are dying. We simply ship this to the nation to see what is going on in Nuba Mountains.” [GUNSHOTS] “Yeah.” [GUNSHOTS] Sudan is within the grip of a brutal civil struggle. Eleven million individuals have been pushed from their houses, and tens of 1000’s have been killed. As a paramilitary group referred to as the Speedy Assist Forces — [CRIES] — battles the Sudanese Military for management of the nation. The U.N. has accused either side of abuses. However a six-month investigation by The New York Instances exhibits that the R.S.F. is committing systemic atrocities throughout Sudan, together with ethnic cleaning — — typically underneath the watch of its commanders. The opaque construction of the R.S.F. makes it arduous 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 at the least 20 key figures and the areas they function in. R.S.F. fighters underneath these commanders typically 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 Undertaking to gather these movies because the R.S.F. moved throughout Sudan. We analyzed fireplace alerts and pictures collected by satellites, too. We interviewed an R.S.F. commander on the entrance line. – [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] And we spoke to witnesses to the struggle 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. Nearly twenty years in the past, a infamous militia referred to as the Janjaweed, which means devils on horseback, carried out a genocide in Darfur. Over 300,000 individuals have been estimated to have been killed. A former Janjaweed commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or Hemeti, now leads the Speedy Assist Forces, alongside together with his brother Abdul Rahim as his deputy. And their fighters are utilizing the techniques of Darfur from 20 years in the past, in in the present day’s civil struggle. We documented three broad patterns of abuse — executing unarmed captives, intentionally torching communities and instantly abusing civilians, together with with sexual violence. R.S.F. fighters might be recognized by their uniform. They put on gentle camouflage, typically with a Sudanese flag on one sleeve and a particular brand on the opposite. They generally recruit mercenaries and battle alongside loose-knit militias, who’re normally in plain garments. And plenty of have scarves often called kadamols wrapped round their heads. We frequently hear them use the language of ethnic cleaning. Sudan’s military can be accused of struggle crimes, together with intentionally ravenous civilians, shelling hospitals and indiscriminate airstrikes. [ROCKET FLYING] As many as 200 individuals 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 — – [IMITATING CATS]: – [IMITATING CATS]: — which will quantity to crimes in opposition to humanity. One of many commanders we discovered on the website of a number of atrocities is Hussein Barsham. He normally directs preventing 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 subject close by. Barsham celebrates by the entrance of the terminal, however video filmed on the opposite facet exhibits what their victory seems to be 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 car 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 complete. 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 struggle crime. Along with our evaluation, a health care provider with experience in conflict-related accidents instructed us there are indicators that that’s precisely what occurred right here. The blood is recent. A number of of the our bodies are twitching, indicating they have been lately killed. The blood splatter matches the gunshot wounds, and among the physique positions counsel they have been killed right here, not moved after the battle. Barsham is close by, displaying off the jacket of a Sudanese soldier. A satellite tv for pc picture taken on Oct. 30 exhibits the execution website, confirming the lads 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. Below the legal guidelines of struggle, he could bear duty if he ordered this crime or did nothing to forestall it. Eight months later, we discovered Barsham with three extra R.S.F. commanders, Salih Al Futi, Al Taj Al Tijani and a subject 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] – [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] They unfold out between streets of houses — — brag about males that they had killed — — and threaten others taken captive. Tons of 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. In the course of the assault, the R.S.F. rounds up 20 males and takes them simply exterior the city. An unidentified fighter says that he acknowledges one of many males as a military officer. Just a few of the lads are carrying army fatigues however none of them are armed. Then, simply as they did at Baleela Airport, the R.S.F. opened fireplace. [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 will not be 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 struggle’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 exhibits 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 many years in the past. Mariam Mohammed Ismael is amongst half one million Sudanese who fled the violence to Chad. The R.S.F. laid waste to El Geneina, burning down or destroying shut to at least one quarter of the town’s 300,000 buildings, simply because the Janjaweed did many years in the past. And so they’ve used fireplace as a technique of struggle 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 photographs present no pure fireplace path between burned houses, and a number of villages are individually burned. These are telltale indicators of arson. Tons of 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 army 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 subject commander named Al Gouja is close by — — bragging as much more huts go up in flames. Al Gouja shouldn’t be 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 subject 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 residence 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 depart, that they’re protected. The reservoir in Golo Dam was the principle water supply for the realm, serving greater than 200,000 individuals. 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. subject 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, once we see these commanders collectively as an entire neighborhood is torched. Zeer Salim is recurrently filmed preventing on the streets together with his forces. On June 1, he seems in one other video, not preventing this time however giving the decision to prayer inside a mosque. We situated the mosque to jap El Fasher. The following day, Zeer Salim is out on the street, simply two blocks from the mosque. [GUNSHOTS] That very same day, he’s together 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 duty and blamed the Sudanese Military bombing. There are some indicators of bombardment, however many of the destruction that we analyzed is in line with the R.S.F. scorched-earth techniques. A mile away from the mosque, a neighborhood the scale 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 fireplace. The devastation is closely concentrated within the jap 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 residence by the Janjaweed when she was a baby, 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 — — exhibits the importance of this marketing campaign to the R.S.F., and it unwittingly hyperlinks them to those atrocities. Ekhlas, Arafa and plenty of 1000’s extra have been pressured to flee, this time again to Ekhlas’s residence in Tawila. When Ekhlas reached her residence, 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 individuals. Beating them, generally taking pictures them. [GUNSHOTS] – [IMITATING CATS]: And forcing them to make animal noises. – [IMITATING DONKEYS]: 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 residence state. [DYING GROANS] 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. Tons of 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, taking pictures 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 individuals right here. Simultaneous assaults have been taking place in villages proper throughout the jap Gezira area. In lots of locations, the R.S.F. spherical up the lads of the realm or pressure 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 plenty of different villages. And the fighters gloated about their ethnic cleaning. The assaults triggered one other exodus. 150,000 individuals left in two weeks. They’re amongst over eight million individuals now displaced in Sudan, and thousands and thousands extra who’ve fled to neighboring nations. Proof we collected of the R.S.F. rampage in Gezira match a number of accounts of one other kind of abuse — sexual violence. Survivors have given testimony to specialists 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, notably across the space that Kaykal was from. Tambul, Rufaa and Azraq are among the many villages R.S.F. fighters bragged that that they had destroyed. Consultants 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 instantly about sexual violence, however they feared for the ladies and ladies of their communities. Hanan Abbakar Al Tahir recalled R.S.F. fighters leering at her in her residence in Gezira. Additionally they killed a person for defending girls. As Al-Nazeer fled his residence, 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 at the least 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 Legal 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 will piece collectively the several types of proof units which might be accessible now, from telephones, from video and audio recordings, which might be additionally proving to be extraordinarily essential 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, could bear final duty. Time and again, fighters pay fealty to him. And the sphere commander we spoke to mentioned that they take orders from the highest. In nearly two years of struggle, 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.
