Fresh evidence of RSF 'atrocities' in Sudan

**Andrew Peach** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Peach, and at 15 Hours GMT on Wednesday the 1st of July, these are our main stories. A new report adds to the growing evidence that the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan's civil war carried out atrocities when they took the city of al-Fasher last year. A law that aims to promote ethnic harmony has come into force in China, but critics say it undermines the rights of minority groups. And Japan's currency falls to its lowest level against the dollar for 40 years.
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Let's begin with the on-going civil war in Sudan. When the Rapid Support Forces, known as the RSF, seized the southern city of El Fasher last October, there were almost immediately reports of atrocities carried out by its troops against civilians. One of the most shocking allegations was that patients and staff were killed at a hospital. Residents who fled the city had terrible stories to tell.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:19)
There are violations taking place on the roads, including looting and shooting, with no distinction made between young or old. Thanks be to God, we managed to reach Tawila.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:34)
I am a displaced woman who fled El Fasher. They left us with nothing, not even food. They beat my two-year-old child right in front of me, and I nearly lost my mind when I saw that.

**Andrew Peach** (1:45)
People who escaped El Fasher speaking last year. The United Nations has already said the attack on the city bore the hallmarks of genocide. Now, a report by the rights group Amnesty International has provided more details about what went on. Among other accusations, Amnesty says the RSF deliberately targeted children.
The RSF now seems to be preparing an attack on another city in the south, El Abade, and there are fears that similar atrocities could be carried out there. Our Africa correspondent is Barbara Plessusher. She told me why this new report matters.

**Barbara Pletasha** (2:17)
I think this report essentially strengthens the evidence we already had about mass atrocities being committed in Al-Fasher, not just when the RSF took it over and captured it last October, but also in the siege of the city and the campaign in the surrounding areas. So Amnesty interviewed more than 200 survivors. They talked about witnessing mass killings, detentions, beatings, sexual violence, the kind of thing that we have heard before. Amnesty very much emphasized that there was an ethnic element to this.
The armed groups that were defending the city came from the local Zaghawa tribe, and so the RSF seems to have targeted the Zaghawa civilians just as it did the fighters. One thing that struck me is that they said that the children were not collateral damage of the violence. There were cases of them being deliberately targeted, so they mentioned specifically shootings, abductions in particular, also rape. And they said that they had identified RSF commanders who had carried out violations of international law, and they urged accountability. I suppose a takeaway that I had was, as the evidence mounts, calls for accountability grow, and yet the violence is still being committed with impunity, which it is. I should say, as we've reported before, that the RSF has admitted there were some violations in Al-Fasher, but it says the scale of them were wildly exaggerated by its enemies.

**Andrew Peach** (3:41)
Obviously it's important to document the truth and the full horrors of what happened, but does this report lead to anything? Does it change anything?

**Barbara Pletasha** (3:49)
It adds to the calls for criminal investigations, for monitoring, for eventually using the bodies that do international accountability, such as the International Criminal Court, to try to bring people to book for what has happened. And the other thing it does is it also strengthens calls for some sort of civilian protection mechanism in international protection force, especially as the RSF does appear to be preparing to launch an invasion of another city, the strategic city of Al-Ubaid in central Sudan, which has led to lots of international expressions of concern that there could be more civilian killings.

**Andrew Peach** (4:26)
And in terms of where we are now with this ongoing conflict between the RSF and the Sudanese military, what's happening today?

**Barbara Pletasha** (4:33)
The RSF does appear to be preparing to launch an invasion of this other city, the south-central city of Al-Ubaid, which is at a strategic transport and location junction. It has essentially had the city under siege for a large part of the war, but it has increased drone strikes in recent months, and it has started to mass troops there. Al-Ubaid is different than Al-Fasher in the sense that the local population there is not one major ethnic group that the RSF sees as an enemy, which it didn't in Al-Fasher. There's people from all over Sudan in Al-Ubaid. But nevertheless, the increase in drone strikes have really been targeting things like fuel and water and power and supply trucks. So there's a humanitarian crisis. I was speaking to somebody whose family is in Al-Ubaid. And I said, are they preparing to flee if the RSF looked like it was actually going to be able to launch a ground invasion? She said, not really. She said, the feeling in Al-Ubaid is they don't believe the RSF will be able to come in by ground. But also, I think just the effort of leaving is huge. If you manage to get to another so-called safe city, rent is just over the top.