Sudan's RSF committed crimes against humanity in el-Fasher, Amnesty says | BBC News — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00A new report by Amnesty International
2. 0:02says the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan
3. 0:05committed ethnic cleansing and crimes
4. 0:07against humanity during the group's
5. 0:09capture of El Fasher. The battle for the
6. 0:12city, which ended late last year, was
7. 0:14one of the bloodiest episodes in Sudan's
8. 0:16civil war. Let's speak
9. 0:18to our colleague Barbara Plett Usher,
10. 0:20who's in Nairobi for us. And Barbara,
11. 0:22just tell us what's in this report.
12. 0:27>> Well, Karen, the report basically
13. 0:29provides more evidence, mounting
14. 0:31evidence of atrocities committed in El
15. 0:33Fasher. Amnesty International
16. 0:34interviewed nearly 250 people, more than
17. 0:37200 of them survivors, not just of the
18. 0:39takeover of El Fasher, but also the RSF
19. 0:41campaign around the city
20. 0:43leading up to the takeover and the siege
21. 0:46of it. And witnesses talked about the
22. 0:47mass killing of civilians, abductions,
23. 0:50beatings, rape, and so on, often
24. 0:52accompanied by ethnic slurs, they said.
25. 0:55The Sudanese word for used for servant
26. 0:57or slave. Now, the Arab militias of the
27. 1:00RSF do have a history of violence
28. 1:02against non-Arab black African tribes in
29. 1:05the western region of Darfur. And in the
30. 1:07case of El Fasher specifically, the
31. 1:09armed groups who were defending the city
32. 1:11belonged to the local Zaghawa tribe. So,
33. 1:14the RSF seems to have targeted the
34. 1:16Zaghawa civilians just as it did the
35. 1:19armed groups. The report also said
36. 1:21that children were not collateral damage
37. 1:24of the violence. They were, in fact,
38. 1:26deliberately targeted. And it lists
39. 1:27shootings and abductions and rapes as
40. 1:30well of children. The RSF has previously
41. 1:33said that there were violations
42. 1:35committed in El Fasher. It has admitted
43. 1:37that, saying it's investigating, but it
44. 1:38says the scale of atrocities is
45. 1:40exaggerated by its enemies. But Amnesty
46. 1:43said it had identified RSF commanders
47. 1:45that had committed violations of
48. 1:47international law, and it called for
49. 1:50accountability. And I suppose, Karen,
50. 1:52that is really one of the takeaways of
51. 1:53the report in a way that as the evidence
52. 1:55of atrocities mounts, so do the calls
53. 1:58for accountability and yet impunity
54. 2:01for the violence continues as the
55. 2:03violence continues.
56. 2:04>> And Barbara, the report comes out even
57. 2:07as the RSF now is planning an assault on
58. 2:09another major city.
59. 2:13>> Yes, that is what it appears. This is
60. 2:15the city of Al Ubayd, a strategic city
61. 2:17in South Central Sudan. The RSF has been
62. 2:21massing troops there, apparently
63. 2:23planning a ground invasion. It has been
64. 2:25carrying out It has essentially had the
65. 2:27city under siege for a large part of the
66. 2:29war, but it has increased drone strikes
67. 2:32in the past month. And this has led to a
68. 2:33lot of international warnings so from
69. 2:35the UN, from humanitarians, from Western
70. 2:37governments warning that there could be
71. 2:39another round of mass civilian violence.
72. 2:41They're basically afraid that another
73. 2:43will happen. Now, Al Ubayd is not like
74. 2:46Al Fashir in that it doesn't have a one
75. 2:48major ethnic group that the RSF
76. 2:50considers to be an enemy. It has people
77. 2:52from all over Sudan, but that
78. 2:54intensified air strike campaign by
79. 2:56drones has been targeting fuel. It has
80. 2:59been targeting water, power, supply
81. 3:01trucks. And so there is a growing
82. 3:02humanitarian crisis there. What the RSF
83. 3:05says that is the government the parallel
84. 3:07government that is aligned with the RSF,
85. 3:10it says that it is listening to
86. 3:11international concerns and that it has
87. 3:13now approved the establishment of a safe
88. 3:16corridor for civilians. We'll see how
89. 3:19that plays out in in practice. But what
90. 3:22RSF officials have also stressed is they
91. 3:24have said that the international
92. 3:26pressure
93. 3:27on the Sudanese armed forces is not
94. 3:29working and that the
95. 3:30the armed forces are not agreeing to a
96. 3:32humanitarian ceasefire. This is
97. 3:34something that the Americans who are
98. 3:35trying to broker this have also been
99. 3:37saying in recent days. Barbara, thank
100. 3:39you very much. Barbara Platt Asher,
101. 3:41Africa correspondent in Nairobi.