The European Union has imposed sanctions on a senior leader of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) over what it called “grave and ongoing atrocities.”
The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces for control of the country for more than two years. Last month, it seized the North Darfur capital el-Fasher after 500 days of siege. On entering the city, fighters went on a rampage, going house-to-house, killing and sexually assaulting civilians, according to eye-witnesses and aid groups.
The EU said deliberate targeting of civilians, ethnically motivated killings, systematic sexual and gender-based violence, starvation as a weapon of war and denying aid access all constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.