The United States determined on Tuesday that members of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias committed genocide in Sudan, and it imposed sanctions on the group’s leader over a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the RSF and aligned militias had continued to direct attacks against civilians, adding that they had systematically murdered men and boys on an ethnic basis and had deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of sexual violence.
The militias have also targeted fleeing civilians and murdered innocent people escaping conflict, Blinken said.
“The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible for these atrocities,” he said.
Blinken’s statement was accompanied by a Treasury Department announcement that RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo had been targeted for sanctions, as well as seven RSF-owned companies located in the United Arab Emirates.
The sanctions bar Dagalo, known as Hemedti, from travelling to the U.S., and they freeze any U.S. assets he might hold.
“For nearly two years, Hemedti’s RSF has engaged in a brutal armed conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces for control of Sudan, killing tens of thousands, displacing 12 million Sudanese, and triggering widespread starvation,” the Treasury Department said in a separate statement.
Sudan’s army and the paramilitary RSF have been locked in conflict for more than 18 months, creating a humanitarian crisis in which United Nations agencies have struggled to deliver relief.
Matthew Saltmarsh, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency, says people who are trapped in war-torn Sudan are in an increasingly dire situation with no end to the conflict in sight.
The war erupted in April 2023 amid a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule.
Their conflict has killed more than 24,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.
Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll in the war.
The sanctions announced by the U.S. include several businesses based in the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula, including one handling gold likely smuggled out of Sudan.
The U.A.E. has been repeatedly accused of arming the RSF, something the U.A.E. has strenuously denied despite evidence to the contrary.
Emirati officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.