Darfur region has gone through a very harsh experience from the beginning of the 2000s until now, in which the Janjaweed militias and parties loyal to them have committed all kinds of human rights violations, a prominent lawyer said.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Friday, lawyer and legal researcher Abdelbasit Al-Haj Al-Hassan said it is the role of civil society organizations and activists to meet the needs of the common citizens in the Darfur region.
He stated that what is happening in Darfur right now is due to the disconnection between the urban and rural areas of the region, adding that what civil society could do is to communicate what is happening in Darfur to the international community.
“What is happening in Darfur now is due to the disconnection of the many areas of the region from each other and the role of civil society is to communicate what is happening there to the international community,” he said.
He explained that it is difficult to prosecute those involved in the ongoing war by national judicial bodies due to the absence of the state since the outbreak of the conflict in April 2023.
“The state has been absent since the outbreak of the conflict in April 2023, and it is impossible to hold those who are involved in the war accountable through the national judicial mechanism,” he explained. “There are other regional and international bodies such as the International Criminal Court that can look into the war crimes committed.”
Al-Hassan revealed that the ICC prosecutor has confirmed that a team from the court is investigating the recent violations committed in El Geneina and the surrounding areas.
“What has happened in El Geneina amounts to genocidal massacre,” he said. “The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction to look into those crimes committed there.”
The prominent lawyer called for restriction of movements for those involved in Darfur violations and to identify human rights violators and to use all possible methods to prevent those violations from happening again.