Suffer the people: Collective punishment of Darfur refugees arriving in Chad as RSF attempts complete control over Darfur

This is an update from a previous post of Suffer the people on how the Rapid Support Force aka RSF formerly known as the Janjaweed have been collectively punishing and purposely targeting civilians in Darfur. As the Palestine/Israeli conflict overshadows other ongoing wars around the world, other conflicts have been unfortunately pushed out of sight and nearly forgotten. In North Africa, particulary in Sudan the 7 month long conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces or Sudanese Army and the rogue militia group Rapid Support Force (RSF), has intensified in Sudan's Western region of Darfur. The conflict has ebbed and intentisfied spordically in Khartoum. Keep in mind that the Sudanese government is still functioning from Port Sudan and government services are continuing in peaceful regions of the country. The Sudanese army has been trying to militarily defeat the RSF in Khartoum and Darfur while seeking a political and diplomatic solution to end the conflict. The RSF have been declared both a terrorist group and an existential threat to Sudan's national security by the Sudanese government and the Army. As was mentioned previously, the conflict is not a war between two insurgent groups. We're speaking of the national army fighting against a militia group with a slight advantage in its weapons arsenal that has threatened the entire country with choas if the government isn't overthrown. Sound familiar? Sadly over the past several weeks, the RSF has been gaining the ground in Western Kordofan province and Darfur's four states South, West, East and Central while battling the Sudanese army in brutal sieges and urban warfare. North Darfur and its regional capital El Fasher is relatively calm and safe still being under Sudanese government control. The RSF and its allied Arab militiamen have also attacked, punished, tortured, killed and taunted innoncent civilians mainly in El Geneina's various neighborhoods and other cities such as Zalingei and Nyala. Many civilians have reported their family members have gone missing as they are forced at gunpoint to flee the cities. Even elderly civilians, politicians and community tribal leaders from the Masalit are not spared. Farsha Muhammed Arbab, one of the most respected Native Administration leaders, was killed alongside other civilians over the weekend during the RSF attack on the Ardamata district. Local, community mediatated ceasefires to halt earlier intercommunal violence had kept most of Darfur peaceful until June. The Native Administration council originally set up by the British in the early 20th century Darfur, functions as both local adminstative rule and conflict resolution to disputes between neighbors, farmers and nomads and has kept the peace between Darfur's various ethnic groups for decades prior the 2003 war. The Darfur Network for Human Rights and the Darfur Victims Support Group have both condemned the civilian killings and the ongoing displacement of Darfuri refugees to chad and IDPs.

Darfur, specifically, West Darfur where the border city El Geneina is located, is the RSF's homebase. El Geneina sometimes spelled Al Junaynah in Arabic means little garden and paradise nicknamed for its lush greenery and gardens of trees and fields across the city. It is sometimes to referred to as Dar Masalit, the official homeland of the Masalit people, one of the major ethnic groups in Western Darfur. It also the closest larger cities to the Sudanese Chadian border and has been a major trading hub for agriculture, essential goods, cows, cars, exported gold (from mines in South Darfur) and weapons due to the wars in one of Sudan's remote regions. The RSF have been seeking to completely control Darfur to not only gain an upperhand in halting the Sudanese Army's aerial operations in parts of Darfur but in the hope of one day being able to rule the whole of Sudan. The RSF militiamen and their allies had hoped to rule Sudan under its own government and they feel it is their right to do so. we already saw how Hemedti and his commanders are only concerned about their own political futures and gains and have cared little for the civilians caught in the middle of their violence. It is unlikely that the RSF will get their wish to rule over Sudan. Support for the SAF has grown even among civilians under RSF rule in Darfur, in Western Kordofan, terrority that the group currently control. RSF ongoing violence against civilians have burned any support that the RSF might have recieved from civilians who were dissatified with the national government and once considered joining the group's side. As of now, RSF territorial control is reminance of miltia control of territory in parts of Libya or the various anti government insurgent groups in Syria.

Over November 5th weekend, 7,000 refugees have arrived at the Adre refugee camp from El Geneina and Western Darfur. The Ardamata IDP camp located in the Ardamata, one of El Geneina's outer district had been encircled and attacked by militiamen. Around 800 people were reported killed by militiamen. Among the 800, both men and boys were seperated from women and girls, detained and later killed. A video of the terrified Masalit men and boys being insulted and whipped by RSF soldiers, before being shot at was posted online to social media by the RSF itself. Despite the fact that the RSF spokeman have tried to deny that their members carried out such atrocities on civiians. The RSF continue to collectively punish the civilians from across Darfur's four states many of who had been internally displaced people for decades and were already made refugees during the previous Darfur conflict twenty years ago. Several IDP camps among them, El Geneina's Kreneik camp in El Geneina which was attacked and destroyed by the RSF in June. Over the November 5th weekend, Al Hashasha Camp in Zalingei faced threat of attack from the RSF. As of now, Zalingei is in a relative calm since the RSF took over the city. Intercommunal violence had been flaring up in IDP camps, El Geneina and other towns in Western and Southern Darfur and was taken advantage of most likely by the RSF even before the current war began. Calm had returned to El Geneina since the RSF carried out a massacre of civilians belonging to the Masalit ethnic group last June which led to many Masalit and other African ethnic groups the Fur, Zaghawa, Daju to flee to Chad for safety and protection from the RSF. More than 300,000 Darfuri refugees have been living in Chad for the last twenty years having been displaced by from their homes and towns during the earlier Darfur conflict in 2003. There is a whole generation of kids who grew up as refugees and some younger kids that have never seen their homeland not even to visit. While the Masalit have been explicity targeted by the RSF, other ethnic groups such as Fur, Zaghawa, Daja and Tama (two of the smaller groups), fear being next targets and have also left Darfur for Chad alongside the Masalit.

Most of the new Darfuri refugees have arrived in the small, rural border town of Adre. As new refugees arrive into the already strained, tent city camp operated by MSF, some are being transfered further into Chad to the Northern town of Abeche. Nearly all of the refugees have witnessed horrific violence, killings, escaped being massacred, have had friends and family members who were massacred and abused. All the refugees are tramautized by the cruelty and gruesome violence they witnessed. Mostly women, children and elderly are arriving in Chad with only the clothes on their backs as they were chased from their homes than harassed by the RSF while crossing numerous checkpoints on their ardous journey out of Sudan to Chad. Many child refugees are too terrified to return home even if the war ended in Darfur tomorrow. The children and adults suffer from nightmares and night terrors. The few humanitarian organizations operating in the Chadian refugee camps such as MSF and UN have been working around the clock and with limited supplies. They have been requesting urgent medical and humanitarian aid for the refugees and Chad and IDPs being hosted on the otherside of Sudan in Al Gezira state in Eastern Sudan. Humanitarian aid has slowly trickled into. The border town of Adre has been overwhelmed by thousands of refugees that have been arriving from Sudan since August of this year. The local residents of Adre have been helping the refugees with aid and the Chadian border patrol have been protecting the camps. But the herculean task of securing thousands of people mostly women, children and the few elderly that make it across the border is straining border patrol and the local residents. Also remember that Masalit, Zaghawa and Fur peoples have ethnic cousins in Chad who are Chadians, their history and culture are slightly different but they consider their cousins across the border in Sudan as one people and the Chad/Sudan porous border doesn't exist as both groups regard the border as part of their traditional homeland that predate modern day Sudan or Chad. These close ties are known by the RSF who have told the Masalit and other non Arab groups that "they should go to Chad, Sudan isn't their country." A similiar phrase was thrown at the Rohingya in 2017, when their Buddhist countrymen in Rakhine State in Burma told the Rohingya, "You are not Burmese but Banghladeshi." . The Darfur Network for Human Rights and Darfur Victims Support group have condemned the ongoing violence against civilians and refugees by the RSF.

The calm in El Geneina was broken when the RSF ramped its attack on the Sudanese Army trying to fight to keep their army bases out of the control of the RSF. A week ago, the RSF took over the 16th army division base in Zalingei in South Darfur and was even able to take over the Army base in Kreneik. Sudanese Army soldiers fighting in Western and Eastern Darfur didn't put up a fight instead hoping that a brief mediatation between the local chief council and the RSF would spare the lives of the soldiers. The fleeing soldiers went to Chad following the civilians and surrounded to the Chadian border army in hopes of survival.

There is a window of hope. The Jeddah Peace Talks between the Sudanese Army and RSF to end the war or get to a permanent ceasefire while bringing in humantarian aid has started up again.

Author's Note: The reason given for the attack on the men and boys in Ardmata were belonging to the Sudanese Army and some of the RSF fear that the boys would become future members of the Sudanese Revolutionary Council the umbrella organization for all of Darfur's fractured, formerly different rebel movements such as JEM, Sudan Liberation Army and all its factions mostly formed from Masalit, Zaghawa, Fur, Dajo groups who long complained of marginalization by Khartoum and being harassed by the Janjaweed/RSF. For readers the targeted killings of men and boys by the militia might bring back memories of 1995 Srebrencia Massacre during the war in Bosnia. It's worth remembering that the Sudanese Revolutionary Council isn't fighting the RSF or the Sudanese Army. The SRC has remained surprisingly neutral in the conflict despite loosing members to the RSF massacre in SLA's Nyala office on October 26th. The groups were also formed into the joint Darfur security forces meant to serve as a local regional police forces to patrol the region. The various Darfur African rebel groups alongside the SPLM North, Beja Revolutionary Forces and Rashiada Lions group had all signed the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement bringing an official end to the insurgency and war in Darfur, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile region and the Beja uprising in Eastern Sudan including Kassala.