‘UAE-backed force slaughtered 27,000’: Darfur governor claims
The former rebel leader Minni Minnawi says 27,000 of his people were slaughtered in just three days when the rogue militia Rapid Support Forces unleashed a killing frenzy after seizing the city of el-Fasher at the end of October.
The former rebel leader and now governor of Darfur Minni Minnawi says 27,000 of his people were slaughtered in just three days when the rogue militia Rapid Support Forces unleashed a killing frenzy after seizing the city of el-Fasher at the end of October.
His estimate, provided during an interview in his temporary office in Port Sudan, is much higher than what has been previously reported about the massacre known to have unfolded late last month.
El-Fasher had been under siege for more than six months before the fall of the city and while Sudanese officials originally estimated that 2500 had died in the attack, testimony has emerged since from survivors and humanitarian workers of an unprecedented killing spree in and around the city.
Minnawi, whose family comes from North Darfur and who belongs to the Zaghawa people who are among those being targeted by the RSF, has lost relatives but would say only that “many were eliminated”.
Quietly spoken and with an intensity of gaze, Minnawi said the massacre could have been avoided and that desperate Sudanese warnings that the RSF was coming were ignored and even belittled internationally.
This, he said, made all leaders internationally and in the West complicit in what unfolded.
“It was not sudden. It was expected for a long time. We warned the UN Security Council and we warned the international community many, many times that Darfur will become a genocide if it is taken,” he told The Australian during a meeting with a small group of Arabic and British journalists facilitated by Al Arabiya productions.
“They did it in 2003 in Darfur; it was the same guys, the Janjaweed … these are not new experiences for this region,” he said referring to the Arab militia armed as a counter-insurgency force by then president Omar al-Bashir and accused of war crimes and ethnic cleansing of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa peoples.
The Janjaweed are widely seen to have morphed into the violent RSF, which the Sudanese say are being funded and controlled by the United Arab Emirates.
“We needed revolution but it was a revolution by the wrong people. This is a very unfortunate turning point that I can describe – the nature of these forces are based on ethnicity discrimination and segregation and intent on genocide. This is the wrong culture … we estimate that 85 per cent of the RSF are mercenaries from other countries across the ocean, mainly Latin America, Colombia and, yes, from neighbouring African countries. But they are not Sudanese – just 15 per cent we think are Sudanese not freely fighting but imposed by others.”
Minnawi said the UAE was “manipulating the international community diplomatically” and its denials that it supported the RSF were “lip service”.
“They are hiding their criminality and are now using sophisticated weapons including an estimated 2000 drones which have been used all over Sudan, including the city of Port Sudan, targeting civilian areas. Everywhere there are more than 20 people together, they target.”
Speaking just hours before US President Donald Trump’s unexpected announcement that he had known nothing about the Sudan crisis but now promised to “help bring an immediate halt to what is happening in Sudan”, Minnawi said peace could be brought about only if negotiations were held directly with the UAE.
“If we are to negotiate, we have to negotiate with the Emirates and not Hemedti,” he said, using the vernacular name for the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdam Daglo.
Hemedti he said was a “puppet” of the UAE.
Since war broke out in April 2023 when an official plan to integrate the RSF into the Sudanese state military turned into an internal revolution, the RSF has been accused of war crimes and atrocities, including mass killings of civilians and rape.
Last Wednesday, Tom Fletcher, UN Relief co-ordinator, spent a week inside Darfur and said this was now the “epicentre of human suffering in the world”, describing what the UN found as a “horror show” and testimony heard from survivors represented a “crime scene”.
El-Fasher was the last city in the enormous western region of Darfur to remain in the hands of the Sudanese Armed Forces, established in 1925, and what are known as the Joint Forces, former Darfuri rebels aligned with the Sudanese military.
Minnawi singled out Britain among Western powers for particular criticism, saying as the “penholder” for Sudan at the UN Security Council – which means it has the primary, informal responsibility for leading the negotiation of resolutions and organising meetings concerning Sudan – it had failed.
This position would have ensured that Britain could use its diplomatic influence to push for international action in the conflict, including demanding emergency sessions of the council or pressure for greater access for humanitarian organisations.
Minnawi also referred to recent UN information suggesting testimony about British military equipment being seen in the hands of RSF militia in Sudan, which sparked questions about the sale of UK arms to the UAE.
“I am not a military man but I think that has happened … and if via a third party or direct to the RSF …. well we hear and we have seen pictures of the arms,” he said.
Asked to comment on UAE statements that it had stopped arms importation, Minnawi said “lip service – they are covering up their crimes … I personally cannot anticipate their ultimate goal, if they need all Sudan or all Africa.
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