Please note, this article deals with war crimes and describes violent situations that may offend the sensibilities of our readers.
The four execution videos bear witness to the atrocity of the war in Sudan. The first is of poor quality, but we can clearly see around twenty men seated, apparently taken prisoner. The numerous soldiers who surround them are agitated, crowding in front of the camera, their fingers in the air to celebrate their victory with cries of “Allahu Akbar”. One of them begins to intimidate a prisoner, before executing him at point blank range. More than twenty shots follow one another, in this video which only captures the beginning of these abuses. The other three sequences later show twenty-one bodies lying on the ground, and victorious soldiers filming themselves in selfies.
Ces images – which we have chosen not to broadcast as is – constitute evidence of one of the many war crimes that punctuate the conflict in Sudan, where soldiers of the regular army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and those of the paramilitary organization have been clashing since April 2023. Rapid Support Forces (RSF). To document this event, franceinfo examined around thirty videos and satellite images. All the clues are available online to understand the sequence of events.
Circulating from WhatsApp to Telegram via Facebook, the videos of these executions, filmed by soldiers, were broadcast around the 21 June 2024, in several SAF support groups, followed by tens of thousands of people, to denounce the abuses of the RSF. In response, they received hundreds of broken heart emojis.
A place name often comes up in the comments : Al-Fulah. It is the capital of West Kordofan State. The city does not represent any major strategic interest, except that it was one of the last pockets where the regular army resisted in the region.
On June 20, the city was conquered by the RSF, after fighting with the 91st infantry brigade of the Sudanese army, entrenched in its base in the northwest of the city. In the hours following their victory, RSF paramilitaries filmed themselves bursting into government buildings or parading through the streets. “Business is returning to normal”some members jubilant on Telegram.
Thanks to clues visible in the videos, such as a radio antenna or electricity pylons surrounding Al-Fulah, we found the exact location where the executions were carried out. The point is located northwest of the city, less than a kilometer from the military base hitherto held by the SAF.
According to our analyses, most of the men lying on the ground are dressed in military fatigues corresponding to SAF uniforms. One of them has his hands tied. Others are dressed in civilian clothes. The victims could thus be soldiers who accompanied Colonel Al-Hadi Diab, then on the run, and whose remains other videos show nearby. His death was confirmed in several pro-SAF Telegram loops from the 22 June.
The NGO Human Rights Watch or the media Sudan War Monitor, which investigated these executions, do not provide further details regarding the circumstances. The Geneva Convention clearly states that executing prisoners, whether military or not, constitutes a war crime. According to reports of the capture of the city by Sudanese media, the survivors of the 91st brigade of the SAF, the precise number of which is unknown, then took refuge in Babanusa, their last base in the region, located 70 kilometers further southwest.
There is little doubt that the suspects are members of the RSF. This paramilitary force led, at the national level, by General Hemetti has been known since the start of the war for having committed war crimes on a widespread basis, according to the United Nations. In the videos analyzed, several clues confirm the soldiers' belonging to this group, starting with their light-colored uniform. On the right shoulder of several men, we can also see their badge (see image below). This emblem is sometimes blurred, probably to prevent the RSF from being formally identifiable.
Above all, these executions are carried out under the surveillance of a tall man, telephone in hand and wearing a brown turban. It appears in the image above, on the right, in the background. Several soldiers proudly film themselves with him. In other videos published the same day, we see this man parading in the streets of Al-Fulah once the fighting is over, alongside an RSF general : Saleh Nahar. This senior officer, who was stationed in Darfur last year, was tasked “of the liberation of the States of Kordofan”according to messages posted on Telegram. The man in the turban, present at the time of the executions, thus seems hierarchically close to General Nahar.
Other publications, consulted by franceinfo, show that civilians were also killed during the fighting and looting following the capture of Al-Fulah. Although it is difficult to precisely quantify the victims during this day, satellite images allow us to see the evolution of one of the city's main cemeteries, located 600 meters from the SAF military base. Between March and July 2024, when satellite images are available, there are approximately 85 new graves, without it being possible to know the causes of death of the bodies they contain.
According to a field expert, interviewed by franceinfo and wishing to remain anonymous, the executions filmed in Al-Fulah illustrate the RSF's desire not to take prisoners. This was also the case in several other of their attacks, like that of Belila airport, a few months earlier. Furthermore, they are not their most deadly abuses. In West Darfur, and more specifically in Al-Geneina, their ethnic crimes left thousands dead at the start of the conflict, according to a United Nations report.
These attacks are not the prerogative of General Hemetti's paramilitaries either. The SAF, led by General Al-Burhane, has also been accused of numerous war crimes by NGOs and the UN. While trying to retake the capital Khartoum and Omdurman, on its outskirts, the SAF also bombed hospitals, schools and markets, causing numerous civilian victims, the United Nations documents. In Al-Fulah, according to publications posted by the RSF camp on social networks, regular army planes also bombed the town.
For more than a year and a half, dozens of abuses have been recorded in Sudan, between ethnic crimes and sexual violence, causing thousands of deaths. As early as July 2023, four months after the start of the conflict, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed the opening of investigations into crimes committed in the country. These relate in particular to the discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of 87 people of the Massalit ethnic group, killed by the RSF in Al-Geneina. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan hoped this summer to be able to “announce requests for arrest warrants against some of the individuals most responsible for what we are seeing right now”.
In response to the numerous abuses observed, the UN Security Council and the United States regularly extend the list of Sudanese military officials under sanction, often leaders of the RSF, freezing their assets or banning them from traveling. Since the years 1990, an embargo also prohibited the sale of arms to Sudan, but several Amnesty International investigations have highlighted an influx of arms coming from the United Arab Emirates, Russia and China, in particular.
In the meantime, evidence of war crimes continues to flood social media. Thousands of videos are circulating on Telegram where soldiers themselves film their misdeeds, which are of a rare atrocity. The lack of censorship of the platforms suggests dozens of humiliations of prisoners, charred or dismembered corpses, when they are not images of young children playing with weapons.
