Sudan’s RSF accused of ‘PR stunt’ after arresting fighters behind civilian killings

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces claim to have arrested several of their fighters after outrage over the extent of killing in the city of El Fasher continues to build. But the paramilitary group’s move has been met with scepticism from human rights campaigners and the Sudanese who see it as an attempt to temper criticism over the violence. Much of the outrage has been focused on a single individual, Abu Lulu, whom RSF media outlets showed under arrest and taken to a jail cell. Lulu, a commander in the RSF, featured in numerous videos that emerged after Sunday’s attack on El Fasher of fighters executing people in civilian clothing. Related: Sudan’s brutal civil war – what has happened in El Fasher? “The detention of Abu Lulu appears to be a PR stunt to deflect global anger and shift attention away from the militia’s responsibility for this massacre,” said Mohamed Suliman, a Sudanese researcher and writer based in Boston. “However, many Sudanese did not buy into this and launched a hashtag: ‘You are all Abu Lulu’ – meaning the entire militia acts like him.” Since the fighter’s arrest, images have been shared on social media of various RSF leaders, including the chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, as well as politicians considered to be linked to him, with the name Abu Lulu written underneath each of their faces. Hala al-Karib, a prominent Sudanese activist focusing on violence against women with the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, said the focus on arresting one man was a “painful joke” intended to deflect from the scale of the violence inflicted by RSF forces in El Fasher and elsewhere. “There is absence of accountability and indifference to our humanity. Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese have perished daily, and young girls and women have been ruthlessly raped during the past three years. Still, all they do is try to silence our suffering,” she said. Karib said the RSF could not be trusted to investigate itself, saying that it had not changed since its origins as a collection of ethnic-based militias known as the Janjaweed, who carried out massacres in Darfur during the 2000s on behalf of the Sudanese government. A civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese army began in April 2023 after a power struggle between the two forces and the conflict quickly spread across the country. Karib said that when former president Omar al-Bashir was imprisoned after being ousted by protests in 2019, the military-led transitional government that took power was not trusted internationally to hold Bashir accountable for crimes committed in Darfur during the 2000s and there was pressure to hand him over to the international criminal Court, where he faced charges of genocide. “The international community did not trust the Sudanese government during the transition to persecute al-Bashir. You want us to give RSF/Janjaweed credibility? This is a mockery,” said Karib. Shayna Lewis, a Sudan specialist at Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities, which works closely with Sudanese civil society, said previous investigations the RSF had claimed it would launch after serious violations had not resulted in any form of accountability. “This tactic by the RSF is a diversion,” she said. “They’re attempting to show that the massacres on the ground are the work of a few rogue soldiers rather than a systematic policy of genocide which we have seen since the very earliest days of the war, committed by the RSF, particularly in Darfur. These claims of accountability run hollow. It’s a farce.” The UN human rights office spokesperson Seif Magango told reporters in Geneva on Friday that hundreds of civilians and unarmed fighters could have been killed while trying to leave El Fasher. “Witnesses confirm RSF personnel selected women and girls and raped them at gunpoint, forcing the remaining displaced persons – around 100 families – to leave the location amid shooting and intimidation of older residents,” he said. There is concern about the fate of tens of thousands of people after Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) raised alarm about only a few thousand arriving in the Tawila displacement camp west of El Fasher, which has previously been a key destination for displaced people in the area. “[The arrivals are] far fewer than the 250,000 civilians estimated to be in El Fasher until last month. Reports from those who fled, as well as credible sources, indicate mass killings, indiscriminate violence and ethnic targeting inside the city and on the roads to escape it,” MSF said. MSF added it had detected malnourishment in 100% of children under five, who are all being screened as they arrived. “They are victims of torture, gunshots on the road, travelling by night, they were forced in El Fasher to eat animal feed, which has caused really bad abdominal problems, especially in children,” said Giulia Chiopris, an MSF paediatrician in Tawila. “Our surgical teams are working non-stop.” An activist who fled to Tawila after the RSF’s attack on the Zamzam displacement camp in April said those who had arrived had to walk for at least two days to arrive. “Many men were killed and some women were tortured,” he said. “Everyone is ill or injured.” Sudanese civil society groups have reported that displaced families are also arriving in nearby villages in north Darfur.