West of the Red Sea, south of Egypt, bordering Eritrea, Chad and Ethiopia is the beleaguered country of Sudan.
On April 15, 2023, fighting broke out in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum as part of a rapidly accelerating power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Initially known as the Janjaweed, the RSF is led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo Musa, known by his nom de guerre Hemedti.
Several organizations have accused Hemedti of being one of the major perpetrators of the savage 2003 to 2008 Darfur genocide, during which approximately 300,000 people were killed by the Janjaweed, and 2.3 million were displaced. That number has since jumped to 12 million, and a severe famine has broken out.
The RSF has been accused of sexual violence against children, subjecting girls to female genital mutilation, and routinely massacring entire communities. One 12-year-old girl, quoted by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, said, “Every day they came to rape me. Sometimes one at a time. Sometimes two of them. Sometimes three of them. I was crying.”
The girl’s mother recalled, “They were calling us slaves and dogs.” Kristof stated that the boys and men were separated at gunpoint, and the women and girls were sent to “rape camps.” Internally displaced people who try to flee are stopped by the RSF at the borders.
In October 2021, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF staged a coup and formed a transitional military council. Deposed head of state Omar al-Bashir, among other members of the Sudanese government, was indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. However, as of 2026, al-Bashir and others with outstanding arrest warrants have not been turned over to the ICC.
However, the ICC made history on Oct. 6, 2025, by convicting Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (Ali Kushayb), a prominent Janjaweed leader. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his involvement in systematic attacks against civilians in Darfur between 2003 and 2004.
Where are the demonstrations on North American college campuses against these rapes and massacres? Why is there silence? Where is the accountability? Both the Biden and Trump administrations labeled the slaughter in Sudan a “genocide,” yet U.S. government officials continue to look the other way.
It’s time there was a refocusing of attention to this geographical area and human catastrophe.
