By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-01-08 20:31:12 | Updated at 2025-01-09 11:24:38
14 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced Jan. 7 that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one side of the war in Sudan’s civil war, is committing genocide against the other side of the civil war.
CBS reports that Blinken called the civil war a “conflict of unmitigated brutality that has resulted in the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe.”
He added that the conflict left “638,000 Sudanese experiencing the worst famine in Sudan’s recent history, over 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and tens of thousands dead.”
“The RSF and RSF-aligned militias have continued to direct attacks against civilians. The RSF and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys — even infants — on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence,” Blinken stated. “Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies.”
The U.S. has issued sanctions against the leader of RSF, Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa, including barring both him and his family from entering the United States, and companies linked to RSF that are based in the United Arab Emirates.
War broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF after an unsuccessful attempt to integrate RSF into the army before a transitional government was formed.
Researchers state that deaths have gone largely unreported, and journalists and aid officials have had much difficulty entering the country.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine published a study estimating that in Khartoum State alone, home to the country’s capital, 61,000 people were killed. The study stated that 90% of these deaths were unrecorded.
Dr. Maysoon Dahab, who led the report, stated, “Our findings reveal the severe and largely invisible impact of the war on Sudanese lives, especially of preventable disease and starvation.”
