The International Court of Justice (CIJ) will render its decision on the request of Sudan to the United Arab Emirates, for having violated the Convention on the Genocide Convention, by supporting the Masalit Group of the Masalit in Sudan, in particular in Western Darfur, and their rebellious militia of the FSR, accused of genocide,
Long-awaited, the deliberation of the Court occurs less than a month after the hearing of April 10 in which the two parties exposed their arguments to the magistrates of this high court of the UN, based in The Hague (Netherlands).
In its request of March 6, Sudan had filed an introductory request for the Emirates for “shortcomings to the Convention on Genocide”, accusing it of “support” for rebel armed groups, including “FSR and militias associated with them” originally “acts of genocide, murders, expropriations, rapes, forced displacements, public property and human rights violations ”.
In its request, Sudan affirms that “the perpetration (of all these acts) was made possible by the direct support provided by the United Arab Emirates to the rebellious militia of the FSR and to the groups associated with it”. The request of Sudan also concerns “the acts adopted, tolerated and taken by the government of the Emirates in relation to the genocide against the Masalit group in the Republic of Sudan since at least 2023. The acts and omissions of the Emirates denounced by Sudan are genocidal in nature, because they aim to cause the destruction of a substantial part of the Masalit group”.
For Sudan, “it is proven, by all types of evidence, that the RSF rebels, with the unlimited support of the Emirates, have perpetrated a genocide, forced trips and murders”. Sudan claims to have presented its request “in order to establish the responsibility of the Emirates for violations of the Convention on the Genocide and to request the indication of protective measures to ensure the urgent and most complete protection as possible of the Sudanese civilian population which continues to run a serious and immediate risk of prosecution and new acts of genocide”.
Khartoum accuses the Emirates of having “violated their obligations under article 1 of the Convention on the Genocide, as well as other fundamental obligations under the Convention on the Genocide, in particular by trying to commit a genocide; by plotting in order to commit a genocide; by encouraging the genocide; complicity in genocide; And breach to prevent and punish the genocide.
Since at least 2023, a genocide has been taking place in the Republic of Sudan ”. While recalling that “the RSF and the militias which are allied to them commit a genocide against the Masalit group, in particular in Western Darfur”, he explains that “the members of the Masalit group, a people residing mainly in the Western Darfur region of the Republic of Sudan, are African blacks who speak of the dialects of the Masalit language”.
“The Emirates have recruited thousands of mercenaries from the Sahel”
According to the Sudanese government, “thousands of Masalit from the whole Republic of Sudan, and in particular Western Darfur, were killed as part of this genocide in the hands of the rebellious militias of the RSF. The intention of the rebellious militia of the RSF was to destroy the Masalit group in whole or in part. The Dar Masalit area is 2,000 kilometers from Khartoum. In 2023, when the rebellion broke out in the Republic of Sudan and reached Dar Masalit, a week after his eruption in Khartoum, the Masalit were systematically targeted, because of their ethnicity and the color of their skin. All the entry points in the most important city in the region, El Geneina, were closed, the rebellious militia of the FSR having besieged the city for 58 days.
-People were burned alive. Rebel militias have engaged in extrajudicial executions, ethnic cleaning, forced travel from civilians, rapes and villages. The FSR and the Allied militias systematically murdered men and boys, including infants, on an ethnic basis. They deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups to rape them and other forms of brutal sexual violence, targeted on the run, murdered innocent people who fled the conflict and prevented the remaining civilians from accessing vital supplies. After having burst into the city of Al Hilaliya, a city of the State of Gezira, the rebel militia of the FSR opened fire and killed 357 civilians, including 212 women, girls and children, poisoned drinking water and prevented access to drugs.
Sudan accuses the Emirates of “feeding” the rebellion and of “supporting the militia which committed the crime of genocide in Western Darfur” and affirms that they “send their own agents in the Republic of Sudan in order to direct the rebel forces of the FSR in the implementation of the genocide”, adding that “large part of the political communications and United Arab Emirates. They provided significant financial support to the rebel forces.
The Emirates are also accused of having “recruited and trained thousands of mercenaries, from the Sahel, neighboring countries and even Colombia, which they sent to the Republic of Sudan to help the rebel militia RSF to perpetrate the genocide and continue to send large cargo cargoes, ammunition and military equipment, in particular combat militia, rebel militia and Experts who form militia members in the handling of combat drones ”.
The Emirates are accused of complicity concerning the genocide of the Masalit by directing the rebel militia RSF and by providing it with important financial, political and military support. He added that “the relationship of the rebellious militia RSF with the government of the Emirates is so based on dependence and the control that it would be fair, for legal purposes, to assimilate it to an organ of the government of the Emirates, or as acting on behalf of this government”.
According to him, the fact that “the Emirates have chosen to act through the rebel militia RSF cannot allow them to escape their international responsibility under the Convention on the Genocide”.
He asks the court to “keep an emergency hearing, to indicate provisional measures to end the violations perpetrated by the rebellious militia RSF, to order all the precautionary measures necessary to put an end to the violations described above, and to force the Emirates to cease their support for the rebellious RSF militia”.
Sudan recalls that it has “on several occasions and urgently” issued its “concerns and denunciations” against the Emirates for their “continuous support for the rebellious RSF militia”, which, according to him, was the main reason for all the violations and all the acts committed against the Sudanese civilian population “and” leads to the Sudanese civilian displacement, murder, theft of goods, on conditions equivalent to physical and psychological torture, and other horrible conditions ”. Salim telema
The defense of the Emirates did not respond to the bottom of the case
Sudan has presented numerous statements to the UN General Assembly, condemning “the interference and involvement” of the Emirates in the internal sovereign affairs of the Republic of Sudan, by presenting “supporting documents which prove support” Emirati to the rebellious militia RSF. In addition to its request, Sudan asks the CIJ to indicate protective measures against the Emirates so that they “comply with their obligations with regard to the Convention for the Prevention and Repression of the Crime of Genocide and take all measures in their power to prevent the Commission against the Masalit, of any act of application (…), the Convention, in particular: The physical or mental integrity of members of the group, the intentional submission of the group to conditions of existence having to lead to its total or partial physical destruction, the imposition of measures aimed at hindering births within the group ”. On April 10, public hearings devoted to this request were held at the Palais de la Paix, in The Hague. The two delegations conducted, on the Sudanese side by the minister (acting) of justice S, Muawia Osman Mohamed Khair, and Emirati, by the ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Ms. Ameira Al Hefeiti, took all day to present their arguments. Sudan has reiterated its position against the support of the Emirates to rebel armed groups which commit genocides and its requests for conservatory measures.
The Emirates focused their mainly defense on the formal procedure. His numerous representatives who succeeded each other to defend them before the High Court, during the public hearing of April 10, asked for the “rejection” of the Sudanese request which, according to them, must be striked from the role “, on the basis of article IX of the Convention on the Genocide. This compromising clause which is the subject of reserve of numerous states, including the Emirates, concerns “the submission of disputes occurring between the contracting parties relating to the interpretation, the application or the execution of the Convention, to the International Court of Justice, at the request of one of the parties to the dispute”. The defense of the Emirates did not, at any time, responded to the substance of the case, that is to say the accusations of “complicity in the genocide” in Sudan, by their “political, financial and military support to the armed groups, in particular the FSR”. S. T.
