LATE LAST YEAR, 50 humanitarian organizations asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make an atrocity determinationOpens in a new tab related to a conflict that was drawing global attention.
The groups requesting the designation had been lobbying the Biden administration for months. In their November letter, they zeroed in on atrocities committed by the Rapid Support Forces, one of the warring factions in a battle for control of Sudan. Six days later, Blinken responded with a determination that the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces were guilty. “Based on the State Department’s careful analysis of the law and available facts, I have determined that members of the SAF and the RSF have committed war crimes in Sudan,” Opens in a new tabhe said in a Opens in a new tabDecember 6 statementOpens in a new tab.
In the case of the RSF, Blinken went further: “I have also determined that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.”
Hellbound and Down 