ICC prosecutor urges Sudan to hand over former president
International criminal court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan has urged Sudan’s de facto government to urgently transfer former president Omar Al Bashir as well as two other former officials to the court in The Hague, The National reported on January 28th.
Khan cited a recent bombing of a Darfur hospital as evidence for atrocities taking place in the region.
While addressing the UN security council on the evening of January 27th, Khan conveyed frustration over Sudan not handing over Al Bashir. Al Bahir has been wanted by the ICC for over ten years to face charges over war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity during the Darfur conflict in both 2003 and 2004, which caused around 300,000 deaths and caused 2.7 million to leave their homes.
Khan said: “Criminality is accelerating in Darfur.” Khan added: “Civilians are being targeted, women and girls are subjected to sexual violence and entire communities are left in destruction. This is not just an assessment, it is a hard-edged analysis based on verified evidence.”
Al Bashir who led Sudan for 30 years, was imprisoned in Khartoum after he fell from power in 2019. His lawyer said in September that last year he was moved from a military facility in the capital to a Merowe hospital to access better medical care. Sudan’s military-led government has been in talks with the ICC about making Al Bashir face trial.
Khan said the fact that 81-year-old Al Bashir and the two other officials who are wanted for crimes in Darfur have not been handed over- 74-year-old former defence minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein and former South Kordofan governor, Ahmed Haroun, who is around 60- would undermine the trustworthiness of Sudan’s stated dedication to justice and and accountability.
Khan urged the security council to commit again to the principles stated in Resolution 1593, which had been adopted two decades ago and referred the culprits who had carried out the atrocities in Darfur to the ICC.
Khan said that a younger generation was dealing with the same atrocities that their parents experienced. Khan said: “We hear those echoes that gave rise to the original referral.”
The north Darfur hospital bombing of January 24th killed a minimum of 70 people and injured over 100 people, according to local medical sources.
The Saudi Teaching Hospital in El Fasher was hit by two drone strikes, in what UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres described as an “appalling attack” that affected the only operating hospital in Darfur’s biggest city. As of yet, no group has come forward to claim responsibility for the strikes.
Sudan is dealing with a civil war between its army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The UN said that tens of thousands of people have been killed and over 11 million displaced since the fighting started in 2023.
The former US special envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello, said in May that some estimates imply that 150,000 people had been killed as a result of the violence.
On January 23rd, The Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) accused each other of launching an attack on the Khartoum refinery in Al-Jaili, as reported by Reuters.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Sudan Research Group’s November report said over 61,000 people have died within Khartoum state.
The National, Reuters
